


Red Butterfly

by TheLadyFrost



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse), Resident Evil - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Anal Sex, Angst, Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Cleon, Creampie, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Developing Relationship, Escapism, F/F, F/M, Graphic Description of Corpses, Gratuitous Smut, Infidelity, Mind Games, Mind Manipulation, Multi, Murder, Obsession, Oral Sex, Sex Games, Shameless Smut, Teacher-Student Relationship, aeon - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-10-26
Packaged: 2019-10-31 00:52:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 48,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17839292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLadyFrost/pseuds/TheLadyFrost
Summary: A crimson kiss. A life time of moments he can hardly hold onto. A mysterious butterfly that never quite fits into the palm of his hand.





	1. Chapter 1

****

* * *

 

**Part One: White Knight Syndrome**

* * *

_**In every good fairy tale there is a simple formula. A dashing hero, a dazzling damsel in distress, an evil villain and a heroic battle to save the world. This story, dear readers, is no different.** _

_**Well…maybe a little different...** _

_**Currently our dashing hero found himself less than dashing as he was dangling upside down by his ankles in a room that smelled of formaldehyde and disinfectant. Subtly, somewhere under that, was the smell of death. It wouldn't be the last time he found himself this way...but it would be the first time he was AWARE that he was being rescued by one other than himself.** _

_**A hero needing a hero.** _

_**How, you may ask, did our hero come to be here? Well…that's a story for another time. This is, after all, Resident Evil and there are no quaint towers and no white knights. There are, however, heroes that rise from nothing to save the day. So come with me and let us see what becomes of a hero when he's in need of saving...** _

_**Our tale really begins with the rescue of our dashing hero by a dazzling damsel who, it would seem, was not in distress at all...** _

* * *

**Umbrella Holding Facility Compound - August - 2005**

* * *

One of his eyes was crusted shut with dried blood. How long had he been hanging here? A day? A year? It was hard to say since all the blood had rushed to his head and he could barely remember his name let alone how long he'd been dangling in the dark.

He had a vague recollection about how he'd come to be here. There was the image of flying fists, of fire and a fierce battle over a flaming pit. There was a face in there, a beautiful face with cool eyes the color of dark skies.

Images blurred and churned in his mind, confusion drifting in to mix with reality until he wasn't sure what he remembered and what he'd imagined. Our hero let out a groan as his head started pounding again, the pleasant numbness of the moment before lost beneath burgeoning conscious thought.

It was hard to see in the semi darkness around him but what he could make out was deformed things in tanks. Limbs and eyes and tentacles encased in glass tubes and floating in liquid of different colors. Directly in front of him was something that might have been a man once. It was tall and had arms as long as it's body with claws as big as mans chest for hands. All five fingers of the claws were razor sharp, glinting in the flickering lights. A great pulsing mass upon it's chest showed that thing was breathing, likely in stasis until whoever was breeding it came along to release it's horror upon the world. The face was skeletal but still vaguely human, showing a place where a nose should go and cheekbones below very human shaped closed eyes. In all, our hero judged the thing in the tube to be eight feet tall and scary as shit.

The other tubes contained things he hadn't thought to see outside of  _Alien._  He might have used an allegory like  _Monsters INC_. or something but that seemed too jovial of a comparison. Were they monkeys? Dogs? It was hard to judge but it seemed likely. He sort of made out a shape that looked like a man sized frog a few tubes away. What kind sick shit pit had he fallen in to?

There was a clatter and the sound of approaching feet. Closing his eyes, he pretended to be sleeping.

Voices came, slow but distinct in the distance.

"He's still out. I think we should start the testing."

"No. No way dude. You know what she said man. She said Wesker would turn our balls into earrings if we so much as touch a hair on his head man."

"Well eventually his head is going to explode or something dude. He can't keep dangling like that."

There was a loud sigh. "Ok. Ok. Let's turn him up. We'll chain him to the Tyrant tank. That'll keep him from trying to escape."

"Hell yeah it will. I wouldn't want to accidentally crack that tank and free it from stasis."

With a grunt of assent, the two voices came closer and our hero found himself being hoisted upright with the grind and whir of a machine. When he was parallel to the floor, one of them released his ankles. He let his body drop boneless to the cold metal. This place was as sterile as a cotton ball.

There was the rattle of chains being removed from his ankles.

"What was the name of this guy again?"

"Eh…" A rustle of papers. "Kennedy. Leon S. Kennedy."

"Ohhhh yeah. Spook type guy right?"

"Yeah. Some hot shit special agent type. Nick name was Ghost because he could slip in and out without ever being seen."

"Ha. Guess somebody saw him. At least long enough to stick a tranq dart in his ass."

"No shit."

The chains on his hands were rattled and released. One of the two voices was dragging him over toward the tank with the nasty monster in it. It was an unpleasant tango that he was NOT thrilled to begin.

Leon cracked an eye and waited for the right moment.

"Jesus this guy weighs a ton. He's all fucking muscle. You think he works out?"

"Shut up, you puss. What kind of gay ass question is that? You want to cop a feel while we're at it or what? Don't drop him. Keep your hand outta his pants. And take his other arm."

"Eat me, dude. I'm just saying he's fucking huge. One of us should get the tranq gun, just in case."

He was unceremoniously dumped on one of the men who grunted at his total dead weight. Staggering a little, the man croaked, "Hurry up dude. He's heavy."

The figure returned carrying a silver tranq gun. "Okay." He tucked it into his waist band. "Let's finish moving him."

They each took an arm and drug him the last few feet to the tank.

"Here wrap his arm around there and I'll cuff it and hook it to this one."

"'kay.

"Don't know why you needed the gun dude. He's out cold. What's he gonna do?"

_**In story telling this is what's known as foreshadowing: A moment when something occurs that subtly lets the reader know of impending events. What would he do indeed? And so our hero said...** _

"This." Leon mused and jerked his left arm. The geek holding it smashed face first against the heavy glass tube, knocking his glasses aside and breaking his nose. He shrieked and the other one dropped Leon's opposing arm to try to draw the tranq gun from his waist band.

Leon beat him to it. He grabbed the gun himself and pulled the trigger against the man's skinny stomach. With a gurgling grunt, the dork fell backwards; out like a light.

The other was still shrieking and clutching his gushing nose as he scuttled backwards across the floor like a discombobulated crab. He hit the wall a few feet away with his back and started moaning. He was making some kind of noise like a horny cat.

Hefting the tranq gun, Leon followed him. His head swam and swirled at gaining his feet but he shook it off and knelt. He pressed the gun to the geek's temple.

"Listen up, dork. And listen well. I only want to hear two things come out of your mouth in the next five seconds: The way out of here and what's going to try to stop me along the way."

The geek spilled the beans. It was rather disappointing really. He didn't have to crack skulls or anything. No bamboo slivers, no burning off ears, nothing. Sad.

He was, well, naked. So he'd had enough presence of mind to knock out the geek and steal his lab coat and pants. The pants were snug as hell and the white shirt beneath the coat fit like a second skin but it was better than being naked. Inspired, Leon also hand cuffed both geeks to each other hugging the Tyrant tank. It seemed fitting given their idea of how to tie him up.

He slipped out into the sterile hallway, clipping one of the geeks ID badges to the lab coat. It was the one who most resembled him. All they really had in common was dark blonde hair but it was better than nothing.

He passed a few more lab geeks on his way through the twisting corridors. A general description from the geek with the broken nose had given Leon some idea of how to leave the tunnels of freakish torture in which he found himself ensconced.

Leon was half way home free when the first real trouble struck. One of the stupid geeks actually had the nerve to look at him. Then she glanced at his ID.

"Hey…you're not Elmo!"

Aside from the fact that he wasn't aware that any real person was named ELMO, Leon found himself in a bit of a conundrum. Did he silence the girl? He wasn't a fan of hitting women in general but this one was hurrying toward a big red button on the wall that just screamed "ALARM". Of course it might also have been the self destruct button for the lab. Lord knew these Umbrella wienies were constantly blowing their own shit up as a general means of not having to deal with their issues.

"Hey!"

She froze.

"If you hit that button there, I'm going to shoot you."

There, he thought, that was reasonable enough right? But the silly girl was still inching toward the button even with a gun aimed at her. Sometimes there was no making sense of the female brain.

"Perhaps you think you are faster than a speeding bullet?" He queried, though technically it was a dart. But still.

"Maybe."

On a sigh, Leon moved toward her. She squeaked and threw the only thing she had in her hand at him. It was really degrading to admit how bad his reflexes were and how impaired his body was that he couldn't even dodge a bottle of YooHoo. It was also really sad that his brain staggered out of reality long enough to remind him how much he loved YooHoo.

The bottle clipped him just above his left ear. He grunted and careened into the wall beside him. The girl squeaked again and then did what any self respecting person at gun point would do - she hightailed it away from him screaming for help.

"Heeeelp! This guy killed Elmo!"

Unfairly, Leon figured it was a far fall from the Ghost to the Guy Who Killed Elmo. He'd be the most hated person on Sesame Street. It was a pretty epic fail.

Leon stumbled, vision spotted. He bumped into a desk laden with computer stuff that bleeped and blared alarmingly at the intrusion. A very loud boom behind him told him he'd better move his ass because, oh yeah, someone was now shooting at him.

A bullet buried itself in his left arm just above the elbow as Leon more rolled than ran out of the room. Somehow he'd managed to swipe the girls card key off the table as he did so, hurrying down the long, narrow hallway toward a set of doors at the end.

Voices were shouting and feet were pounding after him. He felt the hot whiz of another bullet and knew he'd never make it. He was too weak, his body too tired, his brain too shocky to be able to compete with four armed men giving chase down one small hallway. It was pathetic and perfectly human.

Just as he had about to decided to turn and rush the men in a final act of bravado, the doors at the end of the hallway whooshed open. Standing in them was a goddess. Or an amazon. He wasn't sure which. He never was with her.

But either way, she was likely there to kill hi-

"Get down."

And he did. Just like that.

He dropped to the floor and the vixen opened fire. There were shouts that were quickly cut off and turned to gurgles of death. The symphony of death was quite musical to his half numb ears.

Lying on the floor, Leon was pretty sure he was about to die. His vision fuzzy, he glanced up as the vixen knelt beside him. She was gorgeous, all Amazonian warrior queen. Lots of dark eyes and PERFECT tits. Which was, not at all, relevant to staying alive.

"Leon...long time no see."

"Mmm."

"I wonder if I can ever find you when you aren't in peril. Perhaps it's my unfortunate calling in life to protect you."

That was just like her.

She was ALWAYS a bit snarky and tongue in cheek. She was, also in this moment at least, apparently right.

"Rest now, Mr. Hero. I'll make sure the bad guys don't ruin your pretty face."

There was NOTHING he hated worse than knowing he owed Ada Wong a favor.

When it came to her?

Always Wong, never right.

Puns.

His curse on the world. And the last thought he had before he blacked out.

* * *

_**A:N:** Think you've read this? You have. I stalled on it before but have the itch to Ada and Leon again. Fun little run ins with them over the years. It'll bounce through time as I see fit._


	2. Chapter 2

****

* * *

 

**Part One: White Knight Syndrome**

* * *

**_A desperate chase. A dashing prince. A beautiful spy with a dangerous game._ **

**_Some stories aren't meant to be fairytales._ **

* * *

**Mincoxit Mining Camp -Adjacent**

**Outside Umbrella Holding Facility Compound - August - 2005**

* * *

His wounds were infected. The fever raged in him. It made his skin seering to the touch. It made the blue of his eyes peaked and hollow when he bothered to open them at all.

He tossed on the bed, gasping and pained.

She studied him, curious.

When he tossed and knocked aside the table that waited with the water and the rage to cool him, her patience wavered.

All he had to do was SURVIVE until his damn rescue came.

That was it.

Why was EVEN THAT too hard for him?

She shifted toward him.

He was naked beneath the sheet she'd spread over his firey flesh. The heat of his body penetrated the thin fabric and made them dewy to the touch.

Ada caught one flailing hand and pressed it to his chest. "Stop, Leon. Desist. If you keep tossing about, you're going to alert them."

They weren't safe. Not even close.

She'd evacuated him from the compound, at no great risk to herself, but the only safe spot was her small hideout that was the maintenance shed on the grounds. It was PERFECT and ABANDONED. No one knew it was here. But it would draw attention if he didn't SHUT UP.

His back up was coming in less than three hours. He just needed to STAY QUIET.

She pinned his hands to his naked chest while he murmured and cursed in his sleep. His dreams, it seemed, were as fitful as his life. When was the last time he'd STOPPED? Not since Raccoon City, clearly.

His eyes opened, glassy and empty. He shouted at her, "You think you can take me alive!?"

Idiot.

First he got captured being a stupid boy hero and protecting the girl in the pit where she'd found him. The girl? The "witness" he'd been trying to protect? Had left him there to die.

They'd taken him and made her life that much harder.

He was still useful. When he wasn't being a white knight. When he wasn't being outnumbered and a fool without a prayer. She'd saved him in Spain. She'd saved him again in that pit.

She'd saved him now.

She was getting tired of saving him.

Her hand lifted and slapped his feverish face.

He grunted and fell silent, slumping on the mattress. "...you mean to keep me then."

"Yes." She eyed him, "Hold your tongue, Leon. Lie there and shut up. It's not difficult."

"The Ganado are COMING! You think I'll just wait for them?" And he proceeded to curse at her in a very lovely Spanish. It was ok. Until he started shouting again, "LET ME UP! YOU STUPID BI-"

She put her other hand over his mouth. It was necessary but it cost her the hand that had been holding her down.

He surged against her, caught her to him, and rolled her beneath him on the bed.

She let him, hoping it would keep him quiet.

The sheet shifted around them and she could feel the line of his thighs.

He muttered from behind her hand.

Carefully, she withdrew it slightly, "What?"

"Why are you here, Ada?"

Sometimes he made sense. She studied him from her place beneath the boiling heat of his body. His face was flushed but he was lingering intelligently again behind those eyes. "You don't remember?"

He shook his head, trying to clear it, "Is this real?"

"It's the fever. You're alive but wounded. Help is coming. I need you to stay quiet, Leon. Or you'll bring them down on us. We both know if it comes to a battle, you're useless and I can't fight them all."

"...implying what? You'll leave me?"

"To save myself? Naturally."

He shook his head again, sending his shaggy hair around his face in a tangle. "No. NO!" He was back to shouting, "I have to SAVE ASHLEY!"

"There is no Ashley here. Focus, Leon. Focus. You're safe. But you need to stay with me."

His eyes slid back to her face. They slid down her throat and the smooth skin of her collarbone. The black and red vest she wore clung to the red tank top beneath it. It was paired brilliantly with skin tight leather pants. A good outfit for fighting.

Not so good for sitting in a shack boiling with summer heat.

Sweat slid down between her breasts from the column of her throat, and his eyes followed it.

That was fine. He could stare all he wanted if it kept him quiet.

Leon shifted his eyes back to her face. "Where are you HIDING HER!?"

Damnit.

"Shut up, fool."

"I will burn this place down around our ears if y-"

Speaking of ears, she grabbed his and brought him to her. Her mouth was merciless, giving no chance for retreat. She thrust her tongue into his and stole his breath. There...was the only real way to get a man to shut up.

He resisted at first, trying to pull away, and she sealed their mouths like a pro. With a pop of pressure, she let him go enough to hiss, "Stop, fool. Stop fighting. Stay quiet now, Leon. Alright?."

"Ada?"

Confusion. It was the nature of a fever.

"ADA!?"

DAMN HIM. Idiot.

"Shhh. It's a dream. It's all a dream, Leon. Alright? Just...a dream. Give in."

He did, almost manically. It was insane. One minute - resisting. The next - attacking. He all but threw the sheet to the side to give her the weight of him.

His mouth plunged, hers lunged up to meet him. A good kiss - firey and wet. Not their first, certainly not their last, and tempered by the flames of his fever on their merging skin.

He gasped a little as they separated, searching for air, "...I can't think..."

"No need for that now. Kiss me again."

There was THAT, as well. He always did that to her. She enjoyed him. She'd never had him. Not like this. Not exactly. A few passes in the dark. A few flirtations and touches. And kisses when she wanted him to play a game with her.

She'd used him and tortured him for years.

She liked it.

He played the game so well without trying.

She liked using him. It suited her. She enjoyed his company, to a certain extent. He was clever and charming, fashionable and funny, and useful in more ways than one. He was fast and skilled, deadly like nothing she'd ever seen when it called for it, and willing to compromise to save a mission. He wasn't entirely good and wasn't entirely bad. He straddled the line when it suited him.

A trait they shared. And one she exploited when she needed to.

His body thrilled her. He was hard and muscled, smooth and silky, honed and handsome. He was her physical equivalent.

That was about right, Ada thought, the situation was poorly timed but perfectly timed. One - he was out of it. He'd think he was dreaming if he remembered it at all.

Two - she wanted him in her control. She wanted him QUIET. If he got them detected just by being ill, she'd have to kill him. She didn't want to kill him.

Three - she wanted him in a sheerly feminine way. And she often indulged in the things she wanted. It was her one gift to herself when she'd freed herself from the shackles of her past.

If she wanted it, she took it. It was that simple.

She shifted her hands to back to stroke him, watching his flushed face. He was trying so hard to figure out what was real and what wasn't. Without sympathy, Ada instructed, "Kiss me again. They'll find us if you make any noise, Leon. Kiss me and stay quiet."

He trembled, delighting her, and spilled down into a push up motion above her. She kept working him, rolling him in her relentless fist. His mouth took hers, tasting, almost tender.

She bit at his lips and hissed a little.

And he stopped being tender.

They kissed wet and furious. They kissed hard and fast.

He was quivering above her. From fever? From need? Likely both.

Ada jerked him back atop her, looping her ankles around his ass. Eyes burning, guts churning, he rasped out, "Is this real, Ada? Are you real?"

"Does it matter?"

A good question.

And she demanded, "Be still now and listen."

He did. He went still. He was still trained better than almost anyone else she'd met. The government had spent valuable time and resources making him their eager warrior. He was practically perfect from his tousled hair to to his pretty toes.

She kept him quiet until the evacuation team came to find him. She handed him over under orders for him to taken to safety. Her team never questioned her. She paid them well to do her bidding. She paid them well for their silence.

Leon didn't even argue. Too sick. To out of it. He just did as she asked without question.

Like he'd done in Spain for the cure. He did it now - he trusted her. Even if she didn't deserve it.

She loved that he did as she requested of him. Eager. Young. He was utterly delicious. And sick or not, he was still trained to be  ** _aware._** Of her. Of this. Of danger. He knew she was his best hope of survival.

He was good in Spain when she'd found him again. But now?

He was better.

He was better now than the first time he'd put his mouth on her. Even his kisses had a flavor that intrigued her.

Age had given him skill to match the eagerness. He flicked and delved, kissed and rolled, sucked and slid. It was a brutal, beautiful, bone melting assault. Her eager mouth accepted his like a feast.

The first time - he'd been so sweet. An eager boy.

She'd tracked him down after Raccoon City. She'd slipped into the hotel room where they'd shoved him after he'd agreed to work for them to spare the girl. He was going to be trained, it seemed, for black ops for undercover...for elite. She knew, the moment he said yes, she was going to get him in her pocket as an informant - willing or not. Whether he knew it or not, he was now hers. And she was going to make sure he stayed that way until she was done with him.

It didn't hurt at all that she was painfully attracted to him. His eager, excited, goody goody boy next door looks suited her. He was adorable, in a young, wet behind the ears way.

But his body wasn't. His body wasn't anything but delectable. Honed and perfect. Maybe not such a simple thing, she mused, you had to train hard to look that good.

The deal was looking better and better. Owning an informant could sometimes be enjoyable.

And she'd known the moment he emerged from the shower to find her in his room, that she was going to enjoy the hell out of the game of possessing Leon Kennedy.

The more they played, the more the game bound them both. She had somehow linked herself inextricably to a man who worked on the other side of the great divide. It was terribly within her enjoyment to bounce to whichever side suited her agenda.

She worked with or for whomever she wanted.

But somehow she always ended up tied to Leon Kennedy.

Apparently, a filthy city had been the beginning of a life time of little moments that would wind them together like snakes.

* * *

**_The game began in the rain on the darkest night of their lives..._ **

* * *

**NEST- Raccoon City - 1998**

* * *

There was a moment where she knew she might have over played her hand. As the cable car guided them to Nest, as she knew she was too wounded to walk the distance to get the sample, she knew she had to get the rookie cop to help her. Manipulating men was often as simple as flashing a long slide of thigh...but he was different.

Determined and brave, he didn't flinch like normal men faced with the horrors they'd seen. He rolled with it. He ran with it. He raced against time to help her without knowing she was the thing he should be destroying.

He'd been so confused - if she was FBI...how was she here alone? If she was FBI, where was the back up? Where was the cavalry? Where was the evacuation? Why did she need him?

"But I don't understand how that ca-"

And she'd gripped the side of his face to kiss him.

It was the first time she realized that kissing him was the perfect way to gain his silence.

He stopped talking to let her.

As she leaned back, she said, "I like you, Leon," Hell, that part was  _true_ she didn't even need to fake it, "I need your help. If I could do it myself, I would. But I can't. We can't let the sample fall into the wrong hands. I need you to trust me. I need you to help me. I want to see you again. But we have to..."

He studied her, shrewdly, with those blue eyes that said he  _wanted_ to believe her...but he had a dozen reasons to doubt her.

Her hand slid against his knee, around the inside of his thigh. He glanced between it and her face. Eagerly, she pleaded, "Please...help me. So I can make sure this never happens again."

There.

Perfect.

She appealed to his need to protect. It was what made him a cop. She knew, as she pushed the button, that he'd do it. He'd do it to save the world. He was just that kind of man.

And he did. The rookie. The kid. He walked alone into the NEST and came back with that sample. It was how she knew there was no one else on Earth like him.

On the bridge, facing him, she knew someone had spilled the beans about her. Someone knew she was a liar.

His face...she'd never forget it.

He held the sample out like a taunting red flag to a furious bull. "This what you want?"

It was. But she didn't need it. She didn't need it at all. She'd stolen a sample from the idiot that tried to take the cable car to safety while she was sitting on it. She had a sample. She didn't need the one Leon carried anymore.

But she couldn't let him have it either.

Ada shook her head, lifting her gun. "Don't do this. Please. Leon...give it to me. Come with me. Let me protect you."

Surprised, he arched his brows, "From whom? You're the bad guy, Ada! Tell me it's not true. Tell me you haven't been screwing me from the moment we met. Tell me I'm wrong."

She lifted the gun to eye level on him. "Please...don't make it personal. It's my job. But I can protect you. Give me the sample. Drop the gun and come with me. Come with me now and I'll get you out. I'll make sure you are protected."

He shook his head - and raised his gun on her. "From whom!? Who wants me dead? You're the threat here, Ada. You are!"

The bridge began to collapse around them. She thought -  _he's going to hold that gun on me until we both die...boy scout._

She raised her tone to a level of demand, "Give me the sample and walk away. Now, Leon. Don't make me kill you."

Leon laughed, derisively, "You won't kill me, Ada. We both know that. Drop the fucking gun."

She itched her finger over the smooth trigger. She thought about it. But she hated killing. She hated it. It wasn't in her nature to slaughter unless necessary. And she'd meant it - she liked him.

She lowered the gun, laughing, "You clever bastard. So what now?"

"I guess we see how badly you want this sample."

He held it out over the edge of the bridge, over the abyss, "Go fetch, Ada."

He dropped the sample. The bridge pitched and spilled her forward. And the gun went off. Simultaneously. Back to back to back.

She tumbled. Leon stumbled. At the arch way, Annette called, "No sample for anyone now...you fucking bitch."

And the bridge cracked and spilled Ada toward the darkness as the pain ate away at her common sense. The shot was good. Her shoulder wept copiously onto her red dress. Red - her signature color.

She tumbled -and underestimated that rookie cop. He grabbed her and didn't let her fall.

Ada gripped his forearm in surprise as she swung above the abyss. "Leon! Let go of me! Are you insane? This lab is done for! Run!"

He grunted, holding onto her, "Climb up, Ada. Ok? Climb up. Give me your other hand!"

Big hero. He wouldn't let her fall. Even though he knew...she was the bad guy.

Ada tilted her head, watching his face. "...you are better than this, Leon. Don't let them keep you. Do you hear me? When you get out of here? You run. Don't look back. Don't let them manipulate you. You're better than this."

"Ada...for god's sake...grab my other hand."

"I can't. I'm sorry. Let go, Leon. Let go."

She did. She let go. She tumbled as the bridge pitched. He tried to hang on, he really did, but his forearm was sweaty and his grip weak from his own gunshot wound. He lost her.

She pitched into the darkness and heard him shout.

Halfway into the dark, she activated the emergency flush system with her EMF Visualizer. She hit the water. She heard it rush her toward the neighboring tunnel. Her body hit the wall and flipped. It was the best she could do to stay alive.

She awoke in the water listening to traffic on the highway.

The emergency flush had pushed her through the bowels of the lab and out the sewage system to the world beyond. She should have been dead, but she was alive. She doctored her wounds and limped toward the highway.

She battled back from her own illness for four days following that night.

She woke up in a filthy hovel while Vernon the "on call doc" worked to keep her fever down and disinfect her wounds. Her leg was a mess. Her shoulder no better. She'd wondered if she'd even survive it. Vernon cleaned her wounds with vodka and stitched her up with nylon. He was the best she'd get from a company that refused to acknowledge she was alive until she turned in the sample.

She found Leon two weeks after Raccoon City, stashed away in a hotel room in Zurich. The fool. He'd let them manipulate him into working for them.

She'd been too sick, too hurt, and too slow to stop him.

So now he was the bitch boy for Simmons.

Damnit.

The anger at failing to protect him from his own martyrdom annoyed her.

She wanted to tell him all about Simmons and Wesker and the conspiracy that operated madly behind the doors he'd yet to open. But she couldn't. He had to find the answers on his own. He had to. It was the only way he'd believe.

But she'd keep tabs on him until he was ready.

She meant it - he was too good to lose to the fight this soon. He might even be the thing that turned the tide - when the timing was right. When she was ready.

He might be the key to her own freedom.

So she slipped into the hotel room where they kept him and into the shower like a ghost. Fully dressed, she stepped into the heavy spray behind him.

As he turned, her hand shot out and over his mouth. It covered his sound of surprise as she pressed him to the tiled wall and spoke, softly, "The bugs they have in this room are sound oriented. What they hear, right now, is you in the shower. They haven't started watching you yet, but they will if you give them a reason. I can't stay long - but listen, and listen closely, to what I 'm going to say to you. Will you?"

He scanned her face shrewdly. She watched the intelligence flash on him before he nodded and she removed her hand from his mouth.

"Good. There are forces in play that I can't even begin to explain right now. I told you to run."

He shook his head and hissed, "I couldn't. The little girl, they t-"

"...you fucking hero." She said it without rancor, "It doesn't matter why anymore. It's done. You're theirs now. They will train you. They will try to corrupt you. Understand me when I tell you - there are snakes in your garden of eden, Leon. Snakes. Do not trust anyone."

He tilted his head, "Like you?"

"Don't trust me either. But whatever else you do...remember that you are a tool to them. You are a weapon. Do what they want. Play the game. Get the answers. Get in where you can. So you can fight them."

They held gazes in the steaming air. He shook his head and murmured, "Why do you care what happens to me?"

Her hands shifted. She gripped his ears and brought him to her. He let her and his hand gripped her arms above the elbows on the red rain coat she wore.

Against his mouth, she murmured, "I meant what I said...I like you. Stay alive. I'll see you around, LEon."

She pressed a kiss to his mouth and shoved him away, leaving the shower.

In the quiet heat left behind, he shook his head. He rubbed his hands over his face and laughed without humor. Staring at the mirror beyond the curtain that showed she was gone.

Quietly, under his breath, he lamented, "...women."

Apparently this one? She was about to become the story of his life.


	3. Chapter 3

**Part One: White Knight Syndrome**

* * *

**_A hero hell bent on saving the world. A spy with nothing to lose._ **

**_An unlikely duo trying to thwart a conspiracy._ **

**_He just might be the key to a future without fear - if she can just keep him alive long enough to get there._ **

* * *

The phone call in the middle of the night surprised her. She rolled, her hand skimming the smooth white handset to lift it to her ear. She didn't acknowledge the person on the other end even as the voice intoned, "...I need your help."

Her eyes blinked blearily at the clock across from her bed. Three a.m. - hours before dawn and yet hours after acceptable social hours. Three a.m...the hour you called to bring news of the dead, or the hour you called to invite someone to your bed.

Booty call hours.

But it wasn't a booty call.

In response, Ada murmured, "Good to hear your voice, Leon. You sound tired."

There was a shuffle of noise from his end before he answered, "I'm sorry to call so late. I didn't know who else to call. You left this number on that card. I thought-"

"It's alright." She sat up and the moonlight spilled across her bare breasts as she cradled the phone between shoulder and ear, "What do you need?"

She heard him hesitate and encouraged, "I'm on your side here, Leon."

"Are you?"

Sighing, Ada rolled to light a cigarette, "Unless someone pays me not to be. So far, the price to help Umbrella is too high. Tell me what you need."

"A girl I escaped with Claire Redfield?"

"The redhead?"

"Yes. Yeah. She's...she's in trouble. Big trouble. She tried to infiltrate an Umbrella compound...alone. She was working off a lead that her brother was there."

It would never fail to surprise her how impetuous youth could be. Incredibly, terribly, desperately stupid of a girl with no training to try to go alone against an army of trained assassins...but she admired the balls.

"I see. And this concerns me how?"

She heard him shift. Her head tilted as she listened to the noises outside whatever phone booth he was calling from. It sounded like a train passing. Not a subway train. A real train. She checked the caller ID on her base and determined the area code was Boston. He simply wasn't good enough at covering his tracks yet.

But he'd get there.

"They took her. She emailed me from some server that bounced four times around various mirror sites before I could stop it. The prison she's being held in is infested. It's lost. She says its completely compromised. I need-" He trailed off and Ada arched her brows, listening to what he  _wasn't_ saying.

"...are you involved with this girl?"

The quiet stretched for a handful of moments before he came back to her. "I don't know. I don't know anything. I can't find her. I need Chris. I need her brother. He can track a fart on a foggy day...I need to find him to find her."

Curious, Ada tapped her nails on her knee. He didn't say it, but this girl mattered. Girlfriend? It was irrelevant, given what she needed from him, but the little tug of jealousy amused her. It was like finding out someone else was coveting the car you were buying. It wouldn't change who drove it, of course, but it surprised Ada to find she wasn't fond of the idea of another woman in his bed.

Amused, Ada replied, "I'll find him. Where can I reach you?"

"Uh...I probably shouldn't s-"

"I can find you too, Leon. Or you can tell me. You prefer I relay classified information over an open line?"

She heard him shift in the booth, "Of course not. Right. I'm in Boston at the Biltmore. How long-?"

"I'll see you in six hours." She hung up the phone. She already knew where he was. She'd tracked him perfectly during their phone call. His location was flashing on her palm pilot even as she rolled to her feet.

He didn't like coming to her for help. She could almost taste his disdain at the idea. But he'd done it. Why? To help the same girl he'd sold his freedom for.

She flipped on her laptop and tapped keys, digging up information on Claire Redfield. Pretty girl - young and eager eyed like the boy who'd escaped that city with her. She had notations on the file The Organization had on her about her survival training. Training? The girl was barely out of highschool. But the notations told a story about a brother with military training that raised a sister after a parental passing. It said Redfield had wiped her tears and taught her to kick people in the balls when they made her cry.

According to the data, she was likely more capable of survival than Leon had been during that whole ordeal.

It listed her as the likely source of the demise of Birkin.

Curious, Ada tilted her head. Had she gone toe to toe with mutated G and survived?

She wasn't just a girl - she was a bad ass.

Impressed and respectful, Ada jotted down notes in her palm pilot about the girl. Ultimately, it meant Claire Redfield couldn't be directly involved with Leon Kennedy for any measurable amount of time. Eventually, she'd begin to sniff out the association between him and Ada. She was smart enough to find out the whole game before it even began.

Which meant?

Claire had to go.

Was it best to leave her marooned on whatever island she was on to meet her own demise?

Probably.

But Leon would never trust her again if she didn't help him locate the girl. She needed his trust. She needed him in her pocket. But she could keep him from being the hero that chased the girl. She could send the BROTHER after Claire. Maybe it would net her a sample of whatever was happening there at the same time it took care of the threat of exposure.

Ada tapped keys, tracking the location of the email Claire had sent.

It bounced servers like a ping pong ball, avoiding her detection.

But not for long. What had Leon said? Find a fart on a foggy day? She'd been playing find the fart for as long as Chris Redfield had been alive. Ok. Maybe not that long. But she was good at working the system to locate a mole.

Ada pinpointed Claire Redfield in eighteen minutes of skimming off layers. It was like someone  _wanted_ her to be easy to find. The moment Ada clicked on the last barrier and dropped the location, she caught the ghost in the system tracking her.

Someone was  _watching her find Claire Redfield._

Interested, Ada let them track her. She led them a merry chase for a moment, bouncing the signal around to see how far they'd follow while she found her way back to them. After a handful of minutes the trace turned up a familiar IP address - a masked IP out of Switzerland. A familair country to use to code interest from The Organization.

Her own employers were looking into Redfield?

Why?

A shiver speared over her spine. Not The Organization. No. Not directly...but one specific member operating on his own agenda.

Albert Wesker.

Curious, Ada tilted her head again, "What game are you playing?"

To find that out - she had to let him locate Redfield on Rockfort Island. She needed to know what he was after there. All the data told the story of the once genius Alexia Ashford and her viral legacy. Wesker was after whatever she'd been breeding there in that prison. What was it? Ada knew she'd let him find it and bring it back.

Why?

Because she needed it. And the easiest way was to get it from him.

And if Redfield and his sister survived? Well they'd know that Wesker had too. They'd be on to him. She'd had another pair of people working indirectly to help her toward victory against her own chains that bound her.

Win...win...win.

She just had to keep Leon out of it.

The best way to do that? How else?

A distraction.

It was time to tell him about Sheena Island.

* * *

**Boston - 1998**

* * *

The cafe at the corner of Wilkes and Biltmont was little more than a greasy spoon with good fried latkes. A german flair for flavor had inspired the cook to bring her home cuisine the palates of the Americans that littered the faded booths at nine in the morning before work.

Leon was sipping coffee when Ada slid into the booth across from him.

She glanced at the plate of potatoes and back at his face. "Your cholesterol won't thank you."

He shrugged, watching her behind the polarized sunglasses he wore. "My stomach will. Right on schedule, Ada. What do you got?"

Ada, in a trench coat and sunglasses herself, crossed her long legs beneath the table and shrugged. She slid a small manila envelope across the red table top to him. "I tapped into your email and forward the location to Redfield. Surprisingly, he wasn't hard to find. He's operating with a paramilitary group off radar in Russia. He's sniffing around after the Caucasus region over there and the rumors of an Umbrella stronghold where they're amplifying strains of the tyrant initiative we thought they'd destroyed in Raccoon. I ghosted your account to get him the information."

Leon tapped his fingers on the table, looking irritated. "Why? I said to get me the location. I could have gone after her myself."

"You could," Ada tapped the folder, "But I need you for something else. Let Redfield get his sister. This can't wait."

Leon inhaled sharply like he was gearing up to argue.

Ada lifted a hand to halt him. "Please. Read the file. You'll see I'm right here. Do you have someone you trust? Someone out of the loop here? You need to get in touch with them and go. There's no time to waste."

Leon tapped his fingers twice more before he spun the folder toward him to open it. He set down his sunglasses to read the information. He read, swiftly, pursing his lips as he went. His gaze lifted to hers and Ada nodded.

"Yes. Exactly."

Sheena Island was Umbrella's breeding ground. It was a city entirely owned and operated by the corrupt pharmaceutical company. Where Raccoon had been in their pocket, Sheena was their Mecca. The island contained a facility dedicated entirely to evolution of the T-Virus. An outbreak recently had signaled that someone, or something, was digging around in their archives and trying to get their research.

Ada suspected Wesker but there was nothing on that island that would point Leon to the former S.T.A.R.S. captain. So for now, it was safe to send him there to investigate. His training would keep him alive. And the outbreak needed squashed.

Leon murmured, "They're taking hostages to experiment on."

"Yes. Without compunction. You don't know what you'll find there, Leon. But I suspect you'll see something even worse than that idiot with the bowlers cap we encountered in Raccoon."

Leon tapped his boot on the ground, looking torn. To encourage it, Ada told him, "Redfield can get to Claire. You know that. But we're the only two people in the world that know about Sheena Island. Help me like I've helped you. I need you."

That worked.

She watched it echo on his face. He couldn't say no to the need. The hero in him just had to help. All the faces of the people dying she'd left in the folder were the kicker. He picked up a picture of a little girl turned into a zombie and shook his head.

Sadly, he remarked, "I'll handle it."

"Thank you." She slid from the booth. "I'm glad you called, Leon. I want you to know that if I can help you, I will."

He glanced up at her beside him in the booth. "I wish I could believe that, Ada. I really do." He looked it. He looked like he wanted to trust her. But he was too smart to do that. "I wish I could figure out what you want from me. What does helping me get you?"

He was too smart to believe she was on the right side here.

Ada leaned down, testing him. He tilted his face back like she'd anticipated. Their lips touched, soft, harmless. Telling.

He even managed to look annoyed by it.

Ada smirked a little, leaning back. "That's why I'm helping you. It's as simple as that."

Leon studied her, searching her face from where he sat, "Is it? You helping me to get in my pants?"

She laughed, musically, "Do I need to?"

Annoyed, he drummed his fingers on the table again. "What's your game here, Ada?"

She dropped the sunglasses, winked, and shrugged one shoulder. "Play it and find out. See ya round, handsome."

He stayed sitting at the table, drumming his fingers. After a handful of moments, irritated, he lifted his hand to touch his mouth where she'd kissed him. And it pissed him off that he kinda missed her already.

* * *

**Starlight Cruise Liner -2001**

* * *

She was too late.

Too late.

_Too late._

He was dead. She knew that the moment she watched him go down on the deck of that massive mistake set to the water by Umbrella. An infested nightmare, the lab was breeding things that left a sour taste in the mouth of anyone who was attempting to stop them. The rumors of what monsters they were making were scattered and unsubstantiated.

The moment she learned that Barry Burton had recruited Leon to board the ship and liberate data to help end Umbrella, she knew things were worse than she'd imagined.

Damnit.

How had she dropped the ball on this?

She'd been tracking him so well since Sheena Island. He spent some time in Uruguay doing heavy weather training. He was on a special attache mission in Peru to escort a dictator to custody. He was attached to the detail of a clean up in Mozambique.

How had she missed the moment he averted orders and struck out on his own to help an old friend?

Burton and Kennedy were friends through Redfield. When Chris had survived with his sister on Rockfort, the two had connected with Kennedy remotely to begin working behind the scenes to flush out Umbrella. They'd met up with Burton and Jill Valentine in secret to start formulating a take down on Umbrella.

At what point had Burton decided Leon was the right choice for an operation like this?

The ocean liner, code name Starlight to discourage would be eyes from looking beyond the facade of a luxury cruise ship, was rumored to be carrying a new type of B.O.W. Leon went in. Leon went in alone.

Like an idiot.

Like a fool.

Like a fucking hero.

He was now M.I.A.

Burton was dispatched to locate him. But the rumblings Ada was receiving from the ship indicated he was abducted at best, at worst he was infected and dead. The water split as Ada emerged into the bowels of the ship, lifting her mask and unzipping her wetsuit as she infiltrated into the sewage hold. The ship was already sinking. Entering remotely using diving gear was easy enough.

The sewage hold was most submersed anyway.

The ship was going to be tits up and mast down in less than two hours.

She had to find Leon - fast.

All the information she could turn up referred to the Gaiden strain of the T-Virus. She was putting the pieces together on what Gaiden was.

The parasites on the ship were nothing she'd come across before. They bled green. They mimicked human nature. What was worse? They mimicked in a way that told Ada Umbrella was messing with more than just viruses here.

They were cloning.

They were cloning human life.

Simmons, that filthy piece of shit, was in it with them. She'd stake her life on it. Simmons was a well known supporter of the human cloning initiative. The stem cell research controversy was still in infancy. What would the world think to find out it was well beyond using your babies cells to cure your own cancer?

What if they knew there was a copy of your baby being turned into a monster?

Ada made sure to put down every last monster with a human face she encountered. If she was unsure, she did it anyway. The crew was best left dead in this instance as well including anyone, anywhere, that had participated in this atrocity. There was no mercy regarding their disposal.

Ada employed a shoot to kill philosophy to guarantee maximum containment.

She ducked into a small antechamber and heard shouting. There was gunfire. There was the pound of feet. The whip of helicopter blades signaled a rescue was coming.

Curious, she glanced out the porthole beside her to see Burton, holding a little girl in his arms, as he ran for the helicopter. Where was Leon? She read Burton's lips as he yelled at the pilot, "Kennedy is compromised. Kennedy is dead."

He was wrong.

She wasn't sure how she knew that.

But he was wrong.

The door to the chamber opened and in walked Leon.

Her gun was on him without thinking. He tilted his head at her. She tilted hers back. "Long time, no see, Leon."

His mouth lifted in a half smile. "Ada. You're a little late."

"Am I?"

"Yeah. I don't need saving this time."

"Don't you?"

He tilted his head again. "Do I?"

She shook her head, "Take that knife strapped to your leg and cut your hand please."

Surprised, his brows winged up. "You think I'm a clone?"

"Would you know if you weren't?"

The amusement flushed over his face. It sparkled in his eyes. He looked unhurt. He looked unharried. He looked fine. If he was really Leon...why would Burton leave him behind?

Shrugging, he pulled the knife in his boot. "You gonna shoot me if I don't bleed red?"

"You kidding? I'm might still shoot you if you do."

He laid the blade against his palm and pulled it. The blood welled up. It plopped wetly to the floor - as green as a shamrock. Ada shook her head, holding his gaze. "...damnit, Leon."

"...apparently we don't know we're the clone, after all. Gonna kill me, Ada?"

It was the first goddamn time she hesitated to put down a monster in her entire life. The gun didn't waver - but she did. Why? Because it was his face. It wasn't him. But it was his face.

She liked his fucking face.

She didn't want to blow it away.

It was a handful of seconds but it was long enough for the clone to flip that blade in his palm and chuck it at her while she hesitated. Instinct, skill, and luck had her ducking as the knife whizzed an inch above her left ear. She went down into a crouch with her leg thrown to side and fired.

But Leon's clone had ducked behind an over turned shelf while she hesitated.

He taunted, "You love me too much to blow me away, Ada? What kind of fucking pussy are you?"

Gritting her teeth, she used the barrels beside her to provide cover while she waited for a chance to shoot him. "At least if I'd thrown that knife, I wouldn't have missed. But...you are just a shadow of your real self, after all. So who can blame you for sucking?"

The clone spat at her now, irritated, "I am the real me, bitch! Come on over here and I'll prove it!"

The crazy part about the whole exchange wasn't the fact that she was facing a clone. It's that she knew, somehow, that the real Leon would never talk to her like that. He was, at the core, not a man who hurled slurs and insults like a filthy mouthed sailor. He was a gentleman...at least he'd always been to her.

It was one of his most charming qualities.

"Please...I was just standing five feet in front of you and you missed. We both know you're just a useless copy of a better man."

"Fuck you, you slanty-eyed cunt."

"I'll pass. I've had the real thing, you understand. So I don't like sloppy seconds."

That worked.

He pushed out from his cover with his enormous handful aimed at her hiding spot. She started to rise and face him head on, confident that he'd miss anyway, and the door behind her was kicked so hard it hit the opposite wall as it flew open.

She rolled to her back instead and aimed down the barrel at another clone. This one was filthy, bloody, beat up and favoring his left side. She didn't shoot him. Why? Why?

Why!?

This one cocked a brow, shifted his gun an inch up from where it was aimed at her, and drilled his carbon copy right between the eyes.

A handful of seconds.

Why didn't she shoot him?

Because the blood running down his forehead was red.

He put his hand down to her, lowering his gun. "Come on. Hurry."

Ada gripped his palm and let him pull her up. She grabbed for him when the motion nearly sent him careening into the wall. "Jesus, Leon. How'd you get away?"

"They stopped taking blood to move me when the ship started sinking. Burton must have activated the self destruct. The second they released my bonds, I killed them both." He kicked the gun from the hands of his dead doppelganger.

She liked the rage on his face. It was very refreshing to see. Cloning might have given the dead man his face, but it didn't give him his feelings. You couldn't copy the human heart after all, it seemed.

Ada snapped open a small tube and scooped up a sample of the dead clone's blood. He watched her, and she couldn't discern his expression. Why didn't he stop her?

She studied the side of his face for a moment until he turned his gaze to her. "...why are you here, Ada?"

She opened her mouth to answer and the ship jerked, hard, throwing her forward. He steadied her as the alarm system began blaring an alert into the air around them. No time for long winded explanations it seemed.

Instead, she shook her head, "No time now. Come with me."

He did, no questions.

The ship caught fire as they burst into the sewage room. It chased them like Mr. X toward their only chance of escape.

She led him back into the bowels of the ship and withdrew the second suit for him to don to escape. They slipped together into the water with respirators and beat a mad retreat toward the neighboring shore.

At the beach, as they emerged from the water, they both watched the ship disappear into the tumultuous tide. Ada felt Leon watching her and turned her eyes back to him as the Starlight ducked under the frothy waves and was gone. The sky was darkening with the threat of rain and the encroaching night.

Quietly, she told him, "I have an evacuation in route. I can't guarantee we're safe until they come for us. You should stay with me."

Leon just nodded, watching her shrewdly. His arm was held to his side in a way that told her he'd probably had his ribs damaged on that side, maybe even broken. But she didn't touch him to find out.

He didn't ask her again why she'd come.

Did it really matter?

In silence, they moved toward the trees. He stumbled once and Ada shifted to bolster him up without asking. He draped his arm over her shoulders and kept moving.

Why had she raced to his rescue?

He was an investment, sure, he was her informant. But she could have dispatched a team to bring him to safety. Why come herself? Even Ada was struggling with the answer.

What was more upsetting was struggling with her own hesitance to shoot him when she knew it wasn't even him.

Why?

Because something in her guts said she needed him alive. He had some part to play she couldn't predict yet. He was important. Until he was no longer useful, she needed to keep him safe.

No. ALIVE. She needed to keep him alive.

She couldn't guarantee his safety. He was in a dangerous business. She couldn't protect him from that. But just maybe...she could keep him among the living until she didn't need him anymore.

If she could just get him to stop being such a fucking hero.

Apparently, keeping Leon Kennedy alive was rapidly become the story of  _her_ life.


	4. Chapter 4

**Part One: White Knight Syndrome**

* * *

**_A desperate escape._ **

**_An unlikely ally._ **

**_And a favor that might just cost them both._ **

* * *

**Denpasar - 2001**

* * *

It was supposed to be a simple enough mission. She was to infiltrate the market proper, meet with a contact, and broker a deal for an ampule of an early form of the Daylight vaccine that was thought to have been lost in Raccoon City. Created by a doctor named Jenkins and combined with research by Dr. Greg Mueller from Raccoon University who had once worked for Umbrella as a researcher, the Daylight vaccine was engineered using V-Poison gathered from the wasps that had mutated, tyrant rich blood from a fully morphed specimen, and P-Base which was the basal genetic sample of Progenitor stolen from the Arklay lab where Mueller had worked. It was created in an attempt to leverage himself to safety after stealing a Tyrant prototype during his tenure working with Umbrella.

He was stymied in his efforts when Jenkins alerted a follow virology colleague, Dr. George Hamilton, and it was suspected that though Jenkins was summarily killed for his attempts to thwart Mueller, Hamilton may have escaped with the sample of Daylight that was now being syndicated for use against potential weaponized T-Virus outbreaks. At the behest of her organization, Ada was attempting to secure a sample of the vaccine to bring back for analysis and recreation within their private labs.

To her immense disappointment, the meeting between her and the contact - Hamilton- was interrupted by the arrival of someone who had leached onto her feed and tracked her to the meet. Hamilton was taken by the U.B.C.S. and Ada found herself strapped to a chair being interrogated by an angry faced man with a Slavic accent that was referred to as "The Mad Jackal".

She had no doubt she was at the mercy of Colonel Sergei Vladimir. He was often regarded as Spencer's most trusted officer. His time spent serving in the Soviet Army during the Gorbachev era was widely renowned. The collapse of the Soviet Union in the 90's had brought about his retirement but Umbrella, often quick to pick the bones of a military malfunction, had recruited him and given him immediate jurisdiction over their quickly forming Bio terrorist Counter Measure Service. Vladimir was a known patriot to the lost cause of the old dictatorship and likely thrilled at working with a man like Spencer who was secretly was attempting to restore such a regime to the world he wished to conquer.

The little thing that no one talked about though? Vladimir and Albert Wesker were mortal enemies. The two were like fire and gasoline - they were combustive when they touched. He was nearly as gifted in virology as the other man, and was often heard to be touting his brilliance to the ears of any who would listen. It was well known that he wanted to usurp the tyrant project long before Raccoon City had fallen. Best guess? He was making his own monsters somewhere in a basement lab like the war mongering psycho she'd come to expect.

She was fairly certain Sergei had stolen all of Umbrella's core files in Raccoon moments before the bomb had struck and leveled the city. Sergei likely saw himself a hero for the task Spencer had given him. With the government breathing hard down Umbrella's back, Spender had retreated even further into his seclusion. He was a recluse, hidden from the public eye. In his absence, he'd appointed Sergei to C.E.O. Last she'd heard, Sergei was moving all of Umbrella's data to the Caucasus region and encrypting it in a secure location.

She was betting he was here to take the Daylight Vaccine, destroy it, and guarantee that it never saw the light on a global scale production.

It was a shame for him that she'd switched the actual vaccine for a fake. The real one was cleverly hidden in a simple bait and switch at the meeting sight waiting for her to return and retrieve it. The ampule Sergei was holding was saline and food coloring to make it look white and cloudy.

Quietly, Sergei mused, "It is a curious thing, you see, to find myself in possession of something so...precious."

Ada tilted her head at him, "And what's that? The vaccine?"

He grinned, showing yellowed teeth, "No, су́ка...not this. You. Don't you know how valuable you are to Wesker? He will agree to a meeting now, to have you safely returned to his arms."

He was wrong if thought that she mattered to Wesker. Their brief affair had lasted just long enough for them to determine that neither of them was the type to be interested in anything long term. His lack of scruples somehow offended her. He had an agenda as varied and as perverse as any megalomaniac she'd ever met. The moment she realized she was going to stay in his service as a spy though, she realized that he was useful from a business stand point in helping her achieve her end game. It made for cold bed partners to know each of you saw the other as a means to an end.

Ada laughed, lightly, "I don't matter to him. You're wasting your time keeping me. He can replace me with any number of women. I'm nothing to him."

Sergei arched his thick brows. "Aren't you? We shall see. Will you talk? Or will we dance?"

Ada shrugged a delicate shoulder, "I'm not much for talking, Colonel. Better put on your dancing shoes."

They bound her hands and strung her up in a cold stone room. They made a video for Wesker of her torture. It was cold water at first to make sure she stayed awake. It was shock rods to her wet skin when she didn't give them what they wanted.

The pain was something she'd been taught to control. She could handle torture. She'd been built to resist it. Sergei didn't watch the torture. It turned out he wasn't a man given to the enjoyment of seeing someone reduced to a punching bag.

She wasn't sure how long they kept her in that room. The feeling in her arms died and went numb. The first lash on her back from the whip bled badly enough it dripped down her toes where she dangled. They stuffed food in her mouth to keep her alive and dumped water in her throat.

With little choice, she was humiliated by being forced to relieve herself where she dangled since they never let her down to use the restroom. When she soiled herself, they threw water and soap on her to cleanse her. She waited for her chance to escape.

She waited for her chance to fight back.

She waited in vain.

One day the door opened and Sergei emerged looking angry. "It seems I over estimated your worthiness after all. Wesker has declined dealing for your release. It seems you are expendable. If you won't talk and I can't trade you, I have no use for you." He glanced at the men in the room with her, "Dispose of her."

He turned and left, slamming the door to her chamber.

The first masked man moved in front of her. He grabbed her face and slapped her from her partial stupor. "Wake up! I want you to fight back when I fuck you."

Of course. Rape. What else was there for men like this?

They'd rape her and then kill her. She'd be damned if she made it easy for him. He leaned in to kiss her.

Ada spit in his face.

The other man in the room laughed. The one holding her face reared back and slapped her again, hard enough now that it left her a little dizzy. He cursed her in russian and fought her for control of her legs. She tried to swing away and he grabbed her by the backs of her legs and jerked her thighs open. She was already naked. It would be an easy victory if he managed.

His hand grabbed at his fly.

And Ada shouted, "Wait...wait...I won't fight. Ok? I won't fight."

Curious, he tilted his head. "Why not?"

"Why fight? I've lost. Maybe...maybe we can both enjoy it instead, huh?"

He shrugged, stupid and eager, and shifted toward her. "I will bring you pleasure than. I will cum in you while you cry with want of me. Yes?"

Ugh.

But she smiled. "Oh, yes. Come closer."

He shifted toward her eagerly and her legs hooked around his hips. His hands dropped to continue jerking at his fly to free himself. She heard the zipper. She felt him reach into his pants to pull his erection free - and Ada kicked him in the backs of his knees.

He grunted and fell forward, she kneed him in the gut, and his friend rushed at them. But he'd be too slow to stop it. Ada wrapped her thighs around the face of the man on his knees at her feet and jerked with her hips. She twisted. The bones in his neck snapped wetly.

And the other man shouted, stabbing the shock rod in his hands into her ribs.

Her body snapped and jerked, flopped and rolled. The dead man at her feet hit the stones beneath them and didn't move. And the other man roared, "су́ка! I will gut you for this!"

He tossed the shock rod down and grabbed the knife from his vest. He wasn't going to bother to rape her. He was just going to kill her.

Ada kicked at his wrist and the knife sliced instead of stabbed, raking over her belly in a firey flick even as she kicked him in the ass to send him stumbling away.

She bled, he shouted in rage and reversed to come at her again, and Ada taunted, "Who's the bitch now? You can't even kill a woman dangling from the ceiling!"

He reversed, running at her like he'd carve her up, and Ada tried to rotate her body to finish him off. He slapped her foot as it lunged at him and drove the knife toward her ribs. She had a moment to figure she'd bleed out all over the filthy floor at her feet and the echo of a gun filled the small room.

The man slid down her body instead and fell onto his dead comrade. The knife skittered across the floor.

And Leon Kennedy stood in the doorway of her cell, head tilted.

"Ada...long time, no see."

She turned in a slow circle as she dangled. "You're seeing more than you should, I'm afraid. What are you doing here, Leon?"

"What else, sweetheart? I'm saving your ass Admittedly, it's a nice ass.."

Ada rolled her eyes and retorted, "Save the sweetheart for some simpering little girl who needs to be coddled, Leon. Cut me loose. Hurry. Maybe we catch Sergei."

"He's gone." Leon shifted into the room and knelt to dig through the guards pockets for the key to her restraints. Ada kept her gaze on him as he rose and leaned against her to unlock her. She was very, very aware of the fact that she was naked. It was irrelevant, given that she'd just avoided rape at the hands of her captors, but it didn't change the fact that she was certain they both were carefully avoiding looking at each other. "Once he ordered your murder, he left the facility and gathered what he needed to evacuate."

"There's nothing left?"

"I have a team inbound to sweep to be sure, but I don't think we'll find anything."

She tumbled loose when the cuffs gave and her numb arms flopped downward. He caught her at the shoulders as she staggered, angry at the temporary weakness. She spat, "Sorry. I don't know how long I've been dangling. Give me a minute for the feeling to come back."

She watched his jaw flex twice while he nodded.

Such a boyscout, the injustice of what was done to her would offend him. They'd torture her to no availl, of course. She wasn't going to talk. And she'd have died before she let them rape her.

He pressed a bandage to her wounded belly and secured it with tape. All so medical. All so practical. Her breasts didn't even draw his eye.

She was constantly impressed with how carefully professional he could be.

But she queried, "How'd you find me anyway?"

He glanced down at her before she eased back from his grip. "A tip came through the secure server at Langley. The CIA forward the message to USSTRATCOM and they tasked me."

"Why?"

She flipped over the body of one of her attackers and started divesting him of his clothes. Leon replied, "Someone wanted me to get the message. Who knew you were here?"

"No one. I was meeting a contact alone."

He helped Ada take the mans pants and boots. As she started to take his shirt, Leon shook his head and pulled off his own jacket. "The less you wear that belonged to this pig, the better."

Strangely touched, Ada accepted the jacket and slid it on over her torso. She picked up the man's knife and helped herself to his sidearm.

Leon swung the HK416 assault rifle from his back into his gloved palms. The heavy tactical vest he wore complimented the black on black gear that covered him. Ada stumbled a little as they moved toward the door - both from hunger, weakness, and from the large boots she wore.

He caught her arm above the elbow and gave her a shrewd look, "I have an evacuation point scheduled for oh-six hundred at a safe hour outside of Denpasar. I'll get you there and come back to assist the recon team."

"I can't go to the safe house. Not yet."

Leon gave her a narrow look as he they headed toward the facility exit. "Don't play tough guy here, Ada. Let's get you safe. You're wounded, dehydrated, and compromised. I can help you. Let me."

Ada shook her head, "I'm not being a feminist here, Leon. I have to collect what I came for. You can either help me, or let me go. Dealer's choice."

"Damn it, Ada. This isn't a request."

"You're not the boss of me, Leon. I'm grateful you came. I am. But don't let that go to your head. You're not my team leader here. And this is still my mission. I finish my missions. Help me, or go home."

He studied her in the low light of the dying sun beyond the compounds south gate. She was so god damn stubborn.

"I could make you come with me."

Surprised, her brows winged into her hair. Amusement flashed across her face. "Could you?" She stepped a little closer and the muzzle of his rifle pressed into her chest, "So make me. Pull the trigger. Put me down. Or worse...toss me over your shoulder like a caveman and carry me to safety."

She watched his jaw flex again. She watched him lick his teeth in frustration. But he did neither.

She arched a brow at him. "Time matters here, Kennedy. Which way are you going?"

She turned and hurried toward the town square. Shaking his head, he muttered, "Why does no one ever listen to me?"

And he moved after her.

She led him to the square where she'd met Hamilton and helped herself to her the vial she'd taped under the table when she'd switched the fake into her palm. Leon looked at her steadily as she rose. Ada shrugged, "I'm always looking for betrayal. What can I say?"

She held his gaze for a handful of seconds before she said, "Sergei took George Hamilton. He's a doctor who survived Raccoon. He participated in developing the Daylight Vaccine that I'm holding."

Leon jerked like she'd slapped him.

"Yeah. That's what I have here. A prototype. Maybe the last of its kind."

They held gazes over the table - the spy and the hero. He shook his head, cursed softly, and glanced over the darkening horizon. "...fuck."

Ada took two long breaths. "We both know I can't let you have this. Not yet."

Leon shook his head again. His jaw kept flexing as he watched the sun set. Ada added, "I will give it to you as soon as we get to my safe house and I replicate it."

Surprised, he looked back at her.

Ada nodded, scanning his features. "I need to replicate it. I have to. I have my reasons. I don't want you to trust me. I don't even want you to believe me. But I need you to understand that I'm not the bad guy here."

Leon laughed, mirthlessly, angrily, "Do you think I was born yesterday?"

Ada shook her head, she backed up two steps. She watched his rifle inch up toward her. She saw him hesitate, curse, and lower it back to his side. "I could kill you, Ada. Right now. And take that damn vaccine."

"I know that. I also know you won't. You won't do it. Because part of you knows I'm right here. I'm right. If I replicate this vaccine, I can get it out there faster than the US government will. They'll sit on it. They'll manufacture it through the FDA and all the right channels while people die. Uselessly. I'll give you the vaccine, Leon, but I won't leave empty handed. I can make sure this is widely distributed before we suffer another Raccoon City. It's the right answer. Tell me you don't know that."

It was the first real time she felt sympathy for him. She watched the struggle of what was right, what was good, and what was true across his face. He wanted to help, it was all he wanted, and she was asking him to allow her to take something that the "good" guys wanted.

She wanted to tell him that Simmons and USSTRATCOM weren't the good guys. She wanted to tell him they were as dirty as Umbrella. But she couldn't. Not yet. He had To find that out on his own.

Ada took another step backward, "We have twelve hours to replicate this vaccine and get back to your safehouse. Decide how much you want to serve your masters here, Leon. And how much you want to help the world. I'm doing that. I swear I am. I'm just not doing it by your rules."

There was the sound of helicopters approaching behind the walls of the heavily populated market. His team headed to the facility, no doubt. Ada tucked the pistol in her hands in the back of the pants she wore. She poked the vaccine in the leg pocket of the fatigues.

Leon cursed, spit, and let the rifle roll to his back again. "I'll give you six hours to replicate that damn vaccine."

"Thank you. I mean it. This way."

They shifted down an alley as the USSTRATCOM team emerged into the square. Unseen, by the skin of their teeth, Ada took him down a narrow tunnel beneath the city streets to her station in the sewers. She set about replicating the vaccine in the small kit she'd set up.

Leon watched her in the dark, shaking his head, "What's with you and sewers?"

Ada couldn't stop the laugh.

The replication only took three hours. When it beeped and signaled completion, Leon speculated, "Such a tiny thing to offer so much hope."

Ada had said nothing. She was leaning against the wall where she'd been sitting while the machine crafted a sample. She was sleeping. After the trauma to her body, it was no surprise. She trusted him enough to guard her while she rested.

Surely she knew how huge that was.

Surely.

He called her name, softly, as he moved to lift the little replicated sample from the machine and store it in his pocket. Ada had the original in her own. "It's done, Ada. Let's get to the safe house."

She said nothing.

Sound asleep, she was slumped against the wall and still. Leon shifted toward her and touched her neck to be sure she was still alive.

When she didn't protest or even move, he lifted her into his arms instead. Apparently he'd saved her and he was now going to carry her to their secure location like some hero in a romance novel. Her head slid against his shoulder and her limp body left little doubt to how wounded she was.

At the safe house, he divested her of her clothes and set about treating her wounds. A sponge bath and some disinfectant was the best he could without her consent. He wasn't going to just drop her into a bath and startle her awake.

Besides, rest was the best thing for her now.

He set the rifle beside him as he took the chair beside her bed when she was dressed in his spare clothing from his assault bag. A big white shirt and some gray sweats were bettered than the filthy pig gear she'd been wearing.

He'd burn that shit if he could.

There was nothing he abhorred more than men who raped for sport. He knew it was done. He wasn't naive or stupid. He knew men forced themselves on women, especially like Ada who served in intelligence, to prove their power.

But it never failed to surprise him how often it was over looked or ignored. Even to the level of men in his department talking about women "sucking and fucking" their way to the top. It was so common to objectify a woman to diminish her that it was almost socially accepted.

Somewhere, his mother was  _still_ boxing his ears for disrespecting his date in the eighth grade. He'd been raised that a woman was a lady, even if she was the type of lady who liked to go home with a different man every night.

In highschool, Kate Jones had become pregnant. The small town he'd grown up in had been aghast. Because the rumor was that Kate had been gang raped by a few boys on the football team. No one knew who the father was because of that.

It had been a huge scandal. It was one he never forgot. His mother had pulled him aside to make sure he understood the severity of such a thing.

Always _treat your woman like a lady, Leon. Imagine if some man did to your sister what those men did to that girl._

His sister was his world. Born six weeks early, they'd thought at first she was just a preemie. But it was quickly evident that she had down's syndrome and was mentally handicapped. For the first half of his life, he'd made sure that Anna Kennedy never felt an ounce of judgement or restraint because she was different.

Thick as thieves, they'd become the best friends in the world. When he'd left for the academy, Anna had given him the St. Michael medal he wore around his neck even now. She'd said, "Michael is the guardian of the good, Leon. He stands against the evil. He swings his sword for justice. Wherever you are in the world, I know you'll swing your sword to save us."

With the softness that came with a world that hadn't darkened, Anna offered hope. He never got back enough to see her. He knew the down's would limit her time here on Earth, and yet he always had a thousand reasons not to go home to see her.

He thought, strangely, that she would like Ada. Ada with her snarky remarks and her killer fashion. Ada with her flawless beauty and her firey determination. Anna would think Ada was a guardian too. She wouldn't understand how gray the shades between black and white were.

Did he?

He glanced at Ada where she rested.

Did he understand how gray the world was?

Or was he still hoping, somewhere under all of it, Ada Wong was as black and white as he was?

She made a small sound on the bed. She rolled quickly, surprising him, and her hand snatched for the pistol he'd laid on the bedside table to treat her. He beat her to it and kept it aimed at her, speaking softly, "You're alright. It's just me. You're safe."

Ada said nothing, watching him in the cool moonlight.

Leon added, softly, "We have less than an hour until extraction. Go back to sleep."

A handful of moments spilled around them before Ada whispered, "Are you going to shoot me?"

Surprised, he shook his head, "No. Why?"

"Then why are you still aiming that gun at me?"

He was. She was right. Amused, he lowered it. "Maybe I need some sleep too, huh?"

"...did you treat my wounds?"

"I did. I was worried you'd get an infection."

He'd doctored her like she'd done for him in that filthy sewer. He'd taken care of her. She owed him. How the balanced scales of justice just kept dipping for each other.

Ada answered, gently, "Why haven't you killed me? If you think I'm evil, Leon. Why haven't you finished me off?"

Leon set the pistol down on the nightstand again. "I don't know. I keep hoping I'm wrong. I keep thinking that no one is beyond redemption, I guess. You're not evil, Ada. I think you're just using your own set of morals to validate what you do."

Ada tilted her head in the dark, "And you aren't?"

She had him there. Hadn't he just went against all his protocols to help her get her own sample? What was right and what was wrong anymore?

He wasn't even sure he had the answer. He wondered if Anna did.

Leon shook his head and told her, "Go on back to sleep while you can."

"I'm not tired."

He glanced at her face in the moonlight and murmured, "I am."

She got the feeling he didn't mean physically. Quietly, she queried, "What do you want from me, Leon? You keep hoping I'll have a conversion experience and turn against the Dark Side?"

He muttered, rubbing his face with his hand, "Something like that."

Charmed, Ada sighed, "Such a boy scout."

"Maybe. But otherwise where do you draw the line between us and them?"

Us and them. He really, really, really believed she was the US. She was like him. He believed, under it all, she was good. Touched, Ada shook her head, "It's never that simple, Leon. There's no us. There's no them. There's just...survival."

He scanned her face in the filter of silver from the window. "I can't believe that, Ada. I have to know that what I do, what I fight for...it has to matter. Even if it's just a single life I save. It has to be worth it. Or what's the point?"

He wasn't just a boy scout, Ada thought, he was a hero. A hero didn't just do the right thing, a hero believed what he did mattered. He fought long after the fight was lost. He kept fighting when the rest of the world gave up.

Leon Kennedy had been a boy scout in a dying city. Now, he was a hero in an endless war.

Softly, urgently, Ada admonished, "Leon...you beautiful, wonderful, selfless fool."

Her fingers slid into the latches of his vest. She watched the want and the denial spill over his face. But he didn't say no. That was his thing too. He just...didn't say no.

She went to her knees on the bed and tugged him over. He didn't touch her. He let her grip two handfuls of his vest and murmur, "Those men...they were going to rape me before they killed me."

His jaw flexed. His eyes flared. "...I know."

"You didn't even look. I was naked. I was exposed. You didn't even look."

His eyes fluttered, twice, and he whispered gruffly, "I looked. I'm not blind. I looked."

Her mouth twitched, "Did you? Did you like what you saw?"

Oh. He didn't. His face registered rage and anger. "You hurt, exposed, scared and captured? No. No, I didn't. I didn't like that at all."

Boy scout.

Hero.

She breathed, "You saved me. You were the hero right? The hero gets a kiss."

He ground his teeth, shaking his head, "How-I wouldn't. Not after that. Can you really want that? After they touched you?"

Feeling a need to soothe him, Ada cooed, "They didn't touch me. They didn't get the chance. I wouldn't let them. You wouldn't let them either." She brushed their noses together, "I don't let anyone touch me unless I want them to."

He trembled in her grip. She felt it. She saw the indecision on him. She knew he didn't trust her. She knew he wanted to.

She felt a squiggle of pity for him even as she spoke with her mouth to his and their lips brushing, "Do you want to?"

Her hands slid down the inside of his arms. She caught his wrists and drew his arms toward her until they encircled her and she set his hands on her ass. And she breathed, "Do you want to touch me, Leon?"

He didn't grab her. He didn't push her away either. She tilted his face toward her and skimmed her thumbs over his cheeks.

The breath he took was shaky. She brushed their mouths back and forth and he finally whispered, "What do you want from me, Ada?"

A good question.

Too many answers that he wasn't ready for.

So she gave him the only one that mattered right then, "...open your mouth."

He did. No questions. No hesitation. It thrilled her.

She spilled her tongue inside to kiss him. And he moved. That much of a martyr, he wasn't. He finally curved his hands against her ass to drag her into his body. He didn't grope. He didn't go under the clothes.

He didn't have to.

She was pressed so tightly to him that she knew he was happy to be there.

She let the kiss drag on until they were both breathless. Her hand skimmed down and brushed over the rigid length of him behind his pants. He didn't stop that either.

Saint or not, he was still a man.

The sound of swirling helicopter blades drew them apart. He glanced at his watch and Ada adored the flush across his cheeks that was probably half excitement, half shame for touching her.

"...shit. They're early."

She shook her head, sliding off the bed. "No they aren't. That's not yours, that's mine."

She licked her lips and winked at him. "Ask yourself sometime what you think I want from you, Leon. Be honest about it. Stop trying to make it global in scale. You ever think maybe I just like you?"

He narrowed his eyes at her. "Please. You could get a stiff dick from anyone, Ada. I'm not that good of a lay."

Her brows winged up. Her eyes sparkled with humor. "Ouch. Don't sell yourself short. You should work on that self esteem Mr. Kennedy."

"Why? You planning to prove me wrong?"

She rolled her lip under. She glanced down at his groin. His left brow winged up as she shrugged, "I never plan that far ahead. But I'm curious if the package is as good as the face."

He couldn't stop the laugh. He tried. But he couldn't do it.

She grabbed the sample from the pants on the floor and backed up. Hesitating, she finally said, "Take that vaccine back with you...and look into Javier Hidalgo."

Surprised, Leon shook his head, "The drug lord?"

"...it's not just drugs he's running."

They held gazes for so long that he finally said, "...got it...thank you, Ada."

"Don't thank me yet, handsome. See you around, Leon...my hero."

She blew him a kiss and hurried across the lawn to the waiting chopper. He watched her, shaking his head. He didn't know what game she was playing...but he'd be damned if he wasn't waiting for the next round.


	5. Chapter 5

**Part One: White Knight Syndrome**

* * *

**_A gruesome mistake._ **

**_A second too long._ **

**_A mad man with nothing to lose._ **

* * *

**Columbia- 2002**

* * *

The dirty floor wasn't doing anything but making his face itch. He groaned, trying to add volume to the silence that was his current existence. He wasn't sure how he'd gotten here. He wasn't sure who'd left him.

His hands tensed and found themselves unbound for the first time in days.

They'd tried, at first, to drown the truth out of him. They'd tried water torture and smacking the shit out of him. They'd tried, after that, to get him to loosen his tongue with coercion.  _Look what we can promise you. Look what we can offer._

When that failed, they'd left him on the floor like garbage.

He watched a spider skitter through his blood and blink as a big red blob slid into his eye.

Manuella was gone. Krauser had betrayed him for the use of his arm. The fight was brutal. Ugly. It was pain in ways that had no name. Because why? Why?

Because they'd been friends, he and Jack. They'd been friends.

Sorta.

Enough that the first stab to his lower back had more than surprised Leon, it had nearly cost him the fight. He hadn't seen it coming. Sure, they'd argued. Sure, they'd shouted. Sure, Jack was wounded and scared and broken. But he'd thought if they just got him back. If they just got him back to the compound, they could fix him.

Jack knew better.

Jack knew his arm was lost to him.

Jack wasn't a man who handled a disability well.

And he blamed Leon for the loss of it all.

Why?

Because Leon had chosen to protect Manuella against impossible odds. When things had turned hopeless, Leon had stuck to her side like glue. Jack, cut adrift, had battled against enemies too many to count. He'd lost more than his arm in that battle; he'd lost his faith in comrades.

Choosing to protect the target had cost Leon his partner.

And Jack repaid that loss in blood.

The knife had burned going in. It sank deep, it drove a cry from his mouth as he'd nearly gone to his face on the ground with the force of it, and barely held his feet as Jack added a kick to the back of the knee to put him there.

As he wrenched the blade free, he shouted, "How does it feel,  _comrade!?_ How does it feel to get stabbed in the back!?"

The heat of the blood pouring down his skin acted like a shock rod and drove Leon to his feet. He staggered, he ripped his own knife from his vest and pointed it at Krauser, "Don't be stupid, Jack! This was the  _JOB! It was the mission!_ I did what needed done!"

" _You betrayed me for a piece of ass!"_

The hurled horror of that shout echoed over the steep valley. Leon circled him, his left leg going numb. It was a good stab. Krauser had likely gotten him right in the fucking kidney.

He wasn't sure how long he had before it incapacitated him and left him for dead.

"I never touched that girl," Quiet, soft, emphatic - Leon implored him, "I never touched her. She was the mission, Jack. She was the reason we came. I couldn't leave her to die!"

"You ignorant son of a bitch _,_ you left  _me_  to die _!"_

The guilt joined the pain in his side as Leon shook his head, "I didn't! I had to make a choice. I had to! I had to protect the girl. Otherwise what are we doing here?! We can't let the innocent die, Jack! That's what we do! We save the girl!"

"No! NO!  _You_ save the girl! You choose the girl over your partner! Me?" Jack stopped circling, "I kill men who betray me. There's nothing worse, nothing, than a traitor."

Traitor. A word that meant something to a man like Leon. Traitor. A man who betrayed what he believed in for something evil. Was he? Was he a traitor? He'd left Jack for dead, that was true. But his intentions had been good. They'd been right.

He was right.

Wasn't he?

He just didn't know anymore.

With one arm lost to him, Jack was still formidable. They battled across the burning grass as the compound blazed behind them. They threw punches and bled and fell.

When Jack was on the ground with Leon's knife to his throat and his arm poised to snap Krauser's neck, Leon had begged, one last time, "Please, Jack. It's not too late."

And Krauser had spat, "It was too late the moment you left me behind. I won't be a cripple, Kennedy. Finish it!"

Leon had started to let go and the first whine of a bullet surprised them both. It struck the grass beside Leon's hip and tossed up dirt and mud. It bit like a land shark into the ground and chunked sod in a hot splatter.

A warning shot, clearly.

Leon started to drop Jack and the other man bellowed, "NO! NO! Not like this! You kill me! You hear me!? You kill me, Kennedy! You kill me!"

People raced from the flickering firelight and grabbed for them. Jack pleaded, desperately, "No! Please! Kill me! KILL ME! KENNEDY! YOU SON OF A BITCH!"

They dragged them apart. Leon slumped, nearly too weak to do anything else as they dragged him. Jack's final plea reached his ears as they shoved him into a van. "LEON!"

And the darkness snapped closed around him.

They asked him questions when he awoke. They treated his wounds. They fixed him - so they could torture him again. It was a cycle. Fix him, fuck him up. Fix him, fuck him up.

He was beyond hope here, he knew that.

Whatever they wanted to know, he didn't know it. They asked about Wesker. They asked about something called Project Pentacle. They asked about The Initiative.

He didn't know about any of it. What he knew of Wesker was limited. It was useless. Didn't they understand? Torturing him wouldn't make his clearance any higher to learn the things they wanted.

He wasn't anyone. Just a grunt. Just a worker bee.

Just a fool who finished the job and left his friends to die.

He started to rise and his arm gave out. He went back to his face in the blood on the floor. There was a squeal of metal and a cool breeze touched his cheek.

Sleek red heels appeared beside his face and voices filled his ears.

The voice that spoke first was his captor, or one of them, "He's useless. He knows nothing. I don't understand why you want him. We were going to insert him into the Nemesis program."

Jesus. Was that still active? He'd been sure that was shut down with the fall of the labs in Raccoon. Apparently, not.

And then a familiar dulcet tone replied musically, "He has value. More than you know. I should have your ass drawn and quartered for what you've done to him. Did you run this up the flagpole before you started torturing him?"

The other voice sounded nervous now, "...no. They said to interrogate the man we found."

"Yes. And yet you found two men. Two. Where's the other one?"

The feet shifted. The voice replied, "He's gone. He gave us what we needed. He's been taken care of."

Jack. Jesus. Leon made a small sound of regret.

The red shoes shifted back to him, "You were to interogate the other. Not this one. This one was off limits. He's under my protection. I should split you open and watch you die screaming."

The other voice came terrified now, "Ma'am. Please. Please. We had orders. I followed them. I didn't think -"

"No. You didn't. Get the chopper ready. He needs emergency medical attention. You fucking idiot. If he dies, I will enjoy making sure that you join him."

The black boots all but ran for it. The red heels moved into his vision again. He listened to the rustle of fabric and felt the cool touch of fingers on the side of his face.

The creamy voice soothed, "I'm sorry, Leon. I tried to get here sooner but I was delayed. I never imagined they'd be stupid enough to interrogate you both like this. I'll fix it."

Lips touched the edge of his ear as she added, "Kiss it, make it better." She pressed a kiss to his temple.

And he smelled her perfume.

On a hoarse sound, he moaned, "Ada?"

But he couldn't keep it together. He slumped back down. He focused on those red shoes, and he let the dark claim him again.

* * *

**Las Gachas, Outside of Guadalupe -Santander, Columbia**

* * *

The warm push made his muscles feel like spaghetti.

It had taken him almost three months to recover. The damage to his body was one thing - he had scars all over his back and shoulders. There were burn marks dancing up his hip and over his stomach. His body looked like a man who'd survived torture.

But it was his mind that was keeping him here.

Ada had shipped him off to some kind of recovery center. She didn't even come to see him. She left him in the hands of doctors and disappeared.

At first, the physical toll had guaranteed he just slept and slept and slept. After he'd been weaned off the narcotics, the pain had propelled him to fight against recovery. He'd been the type that was a wounded bear - grouching and snapping and resisting.

When it was clear that he was going to recover anyway, he'd thrown himself into the demands of it. His body, well conditioned, had come back beautifully. The nightmares, however, never left him.

It annoyed Leon how utterly fragile the human psyche could be. His own inability to shake the PTSD that plagued him enraged him. The comfort of the remote beauty in which he found himself was the only real thing he looked forward to.

Las Gachas was known as the  _Cano Cristale_ s to the locals, or the colorful river. It was red when it suited, due to the algae that clung so sweetly to the river bed beneath your feet as you walked. Or purple when it pleased, offering the viewer something incredible to feast their eyes upon.

Quebrada Las Gachas was a series of natural plunge pools along a shallow river bed. The river was shallow because water naturally flowed down into the pits, and forced you to literally walk on the river bed. It was slippery, and not for the faint of heart to attempt traversing it. But the reward was more than worth the effort.

Thirty plus pools of perfectly steamed Jacuzzi like water stretched as far as the eyes could see. You plunged in, you felt the immediate joy of utter surrender, and all your pain simply slid away in the sheer release of it. He floated there now, eyes closed, head back, and just - existed.

He just wished the warmth could spread to his brain as well. He was afraid he'd be plagued by doubt and indecision and guilt forever. Jack was dead. They'd all but confirmed that for him. He was gone. He'd died hating Leon Kennedy for betraying him.

In all his life, Leon had never thought of himself as a bad guy. He was a good guy. A friendly guy. A cop who wanted to serve and protect and help.

He'd left Jack to die. He'd left his partner to die. And he'd been tortured for it.

The torture didn't die with Jack. It plagued him in sleep, in waking, in a walking. Behind the closed lids of his eyes, the horror of what they'd done to him never quit. It ran like a movie on continuous play. Torture in itself, it did what any good trauma would do, it kept him from recovering in mind like he did in body.

How could he go back to the agency a shell of himself?

Was anyone even looking for him? It was likely they thought he'd died too. He was probably disavowed and forgotten about. He was likely a file in a drawer somewhere that no one even took the time to read. Another dead soldier in a useless war.

Leon paused, considering the thought. Did he think the war was useless? Sometimes. Sometimes he was aware his body and his mind were taking the hits for a war they were losing.

Did he think there was reward at the end of every mission? Naively, yes. Yes, he did. Sometimes, he thought there should be light at the end of the dark tunnel he was in. He was drowning here. He needed, something, anything...to remind him what he was fighting for.

He wanted to give up and go home. He wanted...what? For his mother to stroke his hair and coo to him and make him feel like he wasn't going to weep every time he pictured a shock rod shoved into his fucking balls.

There was a shift of sound and Leon felt the water lap against his chest.

He opened his eyes to find Ada floating in the water in front of him. The pale curve of her breasts were nicely hidden in the red, red water. She smiled, slyly, and mused, "Leon, long time, no see."

He shook his head, "You wait until I'm all stitched together to show up?"

Ada shrugged a delicate shoulder, "I had things to do. People to see. And I can't stand broken things. I only play with dolls that are working."

He didn't even smile. He wasn't in the mood for her games. Not now, not anymore. Leon looked away, sighing. "What do you want, Ada? You brought me here. You made me all shiny again. You fixed me up. What do you want from me? I don't know anything. I can't tell you a damn thing. You think showing me your tits and flirting with me will loosen my tongue?"

He looked back at her, his gaze direct and cold, "They tried to cut my fucking tongue out to do the same. At least they were honest about it."

Ada studied him, shrewdly. They said he was physically a revelation. She could see the scarring, the blistering, the bruising. She knew he'd taken months to recover from what other men might have never come back from. His body was strong and virile and roped in muscle. But there was nothing in his eyes.

Not the twinkle of the boy she'd known in Raccoon. Not a sparkle from a flirtatious and cocky little thing about to take on the world. He was broken. And she hated broken toys.

She wanted to play with ones that worked. She needed him fixed. She needed him cocky. She needed him ready.

She knew The Initiative was lurking and working with that god damn zealot Saddler on back door plans for a coup to overthrow the United States government. She was still trying to grease palms and find out what channels had chatter about the "how". Wesker was trying, desperately, to circumvent The Initiative and crack his own egg all over the same frying pan.

Whoever got there first, she needed to piggyback into the right circles and avoid the fallout.

The only way to do that, was to let Leon Kennedy uncover Saddler and the Los Plagas, get the sample she needed, and keep the eye of both parties on him while she used him as cover to gather her own intel. He'd never get picked up by Graham as a private detail agent in his current shape. The damn interrogation by those idiots Wesker had hired had nearly broken him.

Physically perfect or not, he'd lost his heart. A man like Leon needed to believe to push on. She had to get him back into the fight. She had to get him back to believing in himself and what they were doing here.

She needed him. She'd spent too long grooming him for him to give up now.

They studied each other through the swirling steam.

And she said, "I have so many better uses for your tongue. Want me to show you?"

Apparently, his body could still get hard. Shock rod to the balls or not, he was still a man. He reacted just like she wanted him to. His heart rate went up. His dick went up. His blood pressure joined the party. She watched the pulse in his neck skip.

These were all good things.

It sounded strange, but if he could be lured with sex - he was still able to access emotion. So he was wounded, but he wasn't dead. This was a very, very, very good thing.

He answered, softly, "You can't fuck me back to life, Ada. Even you aren't that good."

Her eyes sparkled, shrewdly, "You have no idea what I'm capable of, Leon."

Their eyes stayed locked again. He answered, coolly, "We both know you'll run the second I touch you. I'm too tired to chase you, Ada. And I don't want anymore games. What do you want?"

Interesting.

The chase, for him, was something that propelled him. Did he think he was chasing her? She knew it was more like she was shadowing him. But he didn't know that either. He really thought she was leading him on.

She was, in her way, but not like a cock tease. Not exactly. Despite what he thought, chasing her gave him something that put blood back in his dick. Just the thought of her had fired him up. She could smell the want on him.

Broken or not, he still wanted her.

She could take that want and leverage it into a reason to "chase" her. It might just be enough to lure him back to the fight.

So she answered, holding his taunting gaze, "Try it."

She watched his pulse thump. She saw him swallow, twice. Nervous. He was nervous. Of what? Her? A curious thing. So she encouraged, "I have things to tell you. Important things. Things I need your help with. But I don't think you're ready."

He tilted his head, "I'm ready. Tell me."

"You're not. You're broken. I don't play with broken things."

Oh. That worked. His gaze narrowed. She watched the flush creep up his neck. He was turned on  _and_ mad now. He didn't like her calling him broken. Whatever else was true, he was also a man with a great deal of pride. She'd wounded his.

"I'm not broken."

"Yeah? You look like a mess to me. I'm right here. Come and get me."

So she taunted that pacing bull with a red flag. He said nothing, volleying his eyes over her face. She twitched one corner in a smile and cooed, "Who's running now?"

His hand shot out. It caught the back of her neck and dragged her in. She let him, feeling the press of her breasts against the scarred heat of his chest. Her hands twisted in his hair and she nipped at his mouth, breathing, "Heroes survive, Leon. Are you a hero? Or a has been?"

That worked too. He kept his eyes open and drove his tongue into her mouth. They kissed wetly, sharply, sucking and sloppy. Neither closed their eyes.

Her blood burst wet and hot in her veins. There was that, she thought, that. That wasn't her grooming him. That was him. That darkness. That eager edge of something raw and dark under the hero's cape he wore so prettily.

He was edged in Darth Vader under the Jedi shell. He was the type who was good, true, strong - and willing to step into the blood to build an empire. Hadn't he left Jack Krauser to die?

She liked it. She liked his ambiguity. She liked his dealing with her at the expense of his vows. He was a man who knew sometimes, sometimes, sometimes ...you had to sell pieces of your soul to fight the devil. How much would he lose before he was the shell of a man she'd glimpsed just moment before? How long before he lost everything good and had nothing left but darkness?

Her hands shifted, angling his face back to her. She hooked her legs around his hips and mounted the front of his body, brushing against him like a whore. The scars were paint on a perfect canvas, they didn't make him less, they made him more. He was now more than a boy in a bad city, he was a hero in a battle for the world.

He was so much more than the rookie she'd found in Raccoon; he was a hero.

She just had to keep him chasing her and the truth so she could duck under that cape and operate in his shadow.

She was bad for him. Bad. Like the girl in high school that used him for a ride to school. She'd stick her hand in his pants and play with his dick but she'd never come across. She gave just enough to keep him on her hook.

Ada was keeping him on her hook.

He knew it. He could  _feel it._

But he didn't want to get off.

Being on her hook was the first time in weeks that he felt alive.

How far was he willing to go to chase that high?

They kissed until they were both breathless. His hands finally slid against her to see how far he'd let her go. He cupped his hand over her groin. His fingers slid into her body.

She let him. She let him finger her. She let him thumb her folds and find her clit and bring her to orgasm. He felt her tighten. He felt her clench. She sucked his tongue and came for him.

He figured, what the hell, and shifted his hand aside. His left hand clenched through her hair to drag her down. He savaged her mouth as his right angled his dick toward her trembling body. How far was she willing to go to keep him on her hook?

Her free hand wrenched down to his hip to stop him from shoving his dick into her. So not that far. She trembled and their eyes held over their gasping mouths.

Gruffly, he grunted, "...yeah, who's running now?"

If she backed off now, he'd resent her. He'd likely call her a cock tease. He'd hate her a little every time he saw her.

Her nails scraped his hip. Her eyes flicked over his. Flushed, they faced off in a way that could cost her everything. And him. But it was the first time he didn't feel like he had anything to lose.

His heart slammed hard and fast behind his chest. It was her. It was the feeling of knowing he could never have her. It was knowing she was bad for him. It was like sneaking a drink of whiskey and a cigarette out by the barn when he was boy - bad...but so good.

How far would he go to chase that high?

And Ada whispered, "Project Pentacle is run by a man named Marlon Sievers. Stop him. You're the only one who can."

Surprised, the hand in her hair slid to the back of her neck. "How?"

She pressed a kiss to his mouth, soft this time, almost tempting. "His wife is a lonely woman...and you've got a pretty face."

Leon trembled, brushing the head of himself against her. She didn't pull away. And the thrill of it made them both shiver. "I'm not James Bond, Ada. I'm not that fucking charming."

Ada licked his mouth and made him stiffen, "You are. Under the broken pieces, Leon, there's nothing but charm. Harness that pain, and start acting like a hero."

He started to answer that she had more faith in him than he deserved. He started to say something clever and funny and more like him than he'd been in a long time...and she stole the words out of his mouth and his head and his soul.

She used her thighs to sink down on him. The water sloshed. Her hands shifted and gripped his neck, almost like she'd choke him. The shock of it, the need of it, it burst out of his mouth on a curse as his latched to her hips to hold on. The power of her thighs, the power of her pussy, both of them stole all his reason and ripped it screaming from his body.

She fucked him stupid, fast, and determined. She rode him like a jockey on the racehorse of his soul. He angled her just enough to hit the end of her body and she took it, thighs clenching.

He felt her tighten. He watched her face while she came. She clenched so hard around him that he lost his grip on her. She tightened her hands around his throat. Like a leash. Like a noose.

Like a trigger.

He grunted, "...fuck." And she did that too. Riding him madly. The perfect storm. He slid his hands up her back to curl her around him and gripped her shoulders, shoving her fast and hard and furiously down on his body.

Her one sound was a cry into his mouth as she came. He felt his ball seize. He felt his brains scramble.

Her hands gripped his throat and she hissed, against his mouth, "Not in me. Not yet."

And she pulled off him as he reached the edge of his own orgasm and hit it, grunting like a pig or something.

She kicked off the wall behind his hips and left him spurting and gasping in the swirling water as he came. He grappled with the edge of the pool, clutching madly as he shot thick ropes of release all into the pretty red water. Alive.

He felt ALIVE.

She'd shocked his system and brought him back to life.

How far would he go to chase that high?

Above him, he listened to her leave the water. Her voice was hoarse, proving she'd succumb to her own game enough to enjoy him as much as he had her. "You don't have to do the right thing to win, Leon. Learn how to balance on the edge of both worlds. That's the only way you win." She crouched above him. Her hands turned his face up and she kissed him, eyes open, upside down while he quaked after his release.

"When you find the balance, you'll have me. Until then..." She licked his mouth and rose, "See you around, handsome."

He watched her perfect ass as it strode away, easily navigating the slippery rocks. Somewhere in the jacuzzi, the evidence of their coupling was still swirling around him. She'd fucked him back from the edge.

She'd given him the keys to pick up the pieces of himself and keep fighting.

His hand slid down to stroke over his softening dick. He could still smell her on him. The thought made him shiver. She was bad for him.

Bad.

He couldn't wait to see her again.

How far would he go to chase that high?

All the way to the end of his sanity.


	6. Chapter 6

****

 

* * *

 

**Part Two: The Bitch in the Red Dress**

* * *

**A dangerous game.**

**_A willing sacrifice._ **

**_A moment of reckoning to make a hero._ **

* * *

**Washington, D.C.- 2003**

* * *

The weeping was so loud. It was punctuated by the discernible squeak of bed springs and the thump of wall taking the damage accompanied by the heavy strike of skin on skin. It was a symphony of flesh and fucking that left no secrets behind the closed door that stood between the prying eyes of the world and what waited beyond.

He rolled to the side, slick with sweat and panting. On her back, legs akimbo like a well used whore, the lonely wife of Marlon Sievers was still crying in the aftermath. Her hand slapped to her soaked narrow chest as her mouth made sounds that were somewhere between laughter and surrender.

"Oh my gawd..." Her thick Brooklyn accent was almost nasally, "...where the hell have you been all my life?"

On his back, heaving as if he'd run five miles up a mountain in high humidity, Leon stared at the rotating fan with a kind of stale acceptance. He snapped off the condom on his cock and tossed it into the trash by the bed.

Ada was right.

Sievers wife was lonely, horny, and pretty. He'd gotten himself assigned as a body guard to her detail and gotten her panties off in less than a week. Women, for the most part, were predictable. A little light flirting, some promise of the forbidden, and she'd played like putty right into his hands.

When she'd wavered, he'd slid his hand up her thigh at dinner with her husband right across from them, and fingered her while she squirmed. She'd cum against his stroking thumb while her husband had shared wine with Senators four feet away.

Ballsy.

But brilliant.

After that, he could barely keep her off him. Every time the husband left, she was in his pants and on his dick. After a week and a half of fucking her stupid, the secrets started pouring out. Pillow talk was an incredible aphrodisiac. She'd blathered on and on about Sievers with a scorned wife's typical spite. She'd revealed secrets that might have gotten her killed if she'd been confessing to the wrong person.

She knew things that Leon hadn't expected. Sievers, assuming his wife was dumb, had spoken in front of her and not even realized she was listening. She'd learned more being arm candy than she'd have learned if she'd been something besides a big rack and a pair of perfect dick sucking lips.

Fucking Tonya Sievers had gotten him names and connections to Project Pentacle that he'd have spent years digging up through normal means. Apparently, his pretty face was more lethal than a hacker with a grudge against the government. Pentacle was a cloning initiative in its infancy. They were waiting for a sample of some kind of parasite to perfect the process.

In the mean time, subjects were cryogenically frozen to preserve their integrity. They were kept in stasis to allow the body to remain functional until "implantation". Implantation of what?

Sievers wife had struck up a cigarette as he rose. She gave him limpid lidded eyes, "He won't be back for hours yet. You should stay."

He shrugged and returned, "I got shit to do." Tonya liked to be treated like shit in a way. She wanted him to be cold and almost bored like this.

She yearned for it in that way that some women had when they adored drama. She shivered and gave him a lick of her lips, "Come back later and I'll blow you."

He laughed and headed for the door. Just beyond it, Leon retrieved the phone he'd stuffed into the fern beside the door frame. Not hers, Sievers. The fool had left it right on the nightstand before he'd left for work. By fucking his wife, Leon had fucked him as well.

The last number called on the phone had an international code attached to it. Spain, by the look of the extension. Who in Spain was attached to Project Pentacle? He hit redial and waited. It picked up with a rapid spill of Spanish.

The Madrid Metro Homicide Division? What did that have to do with anything? There was a crunchy piece of something stuck to the number three. So Leon hit that button when it prompted him to enter the extension of his party.

A heavily accented voice greeted him, " _Amigo..._ I warned you not to call me here. What if someone is listening?"

When he was silent, the voice sighed, "Of course...a goddamn butt dial.  _Hijo de la chingada."_

The line went dead. Homicide? What did a potential cloning project in the states have to do with the police in Madrid? It was too wide of a berth in the world of weird to make sense.

The phone beeped, surprising him, as a text message rolled in.  _The agent knows. Finish him._

Someone knew he was there. Someone knew he was a spy. It was time to take out Sievers, before Leon wound up a victim of his own scheming.

It was the first time he'd killed someone without being eyeball deep in enemies. He slipped atropine into his cocktail and was gone into the night when the first shouts of alarm were raised. The atropine induced a heart attack. A coroners exam would reveal nothing short of a massive coronary.

It was murder in a way that wasn't at all about guns and blood and violence. It was cold, calculating, and controlled. It was the way Ada Wong killed her prey.

Leon leaned on the wall of the safe house as he rode out the fallout to be sure that there was no alarms raised about Sievers death. While he did it, he hacked systems to track the number who'd texted Sievers phone, but it was buried in so many layers that it would take days or weeks even to find the source.

He was still digging when his personal line rang. Shifting his little glasses off his face as he grabbed it, Leon clicked through data and greeted, "Yeah?"

The voice on the other end said, "Mr. Kennedy? This is Derek Simmons the National Security Advisory...you come highly recommended for your bravery and patriotism. I have an opportunity for you, if you're interested."

Curious, Leon leaned back in his chair and returned, "I am. What's it regarding?"

"...how would you like to be the personal security detail for the newly elected President Graham?"

Surprised, Leon tilted his head, "That's what Secret Service is for, Director Simmons."

"You misunderstand, Mr. Kennedy. I didn't say his guard. I said security. There are threats against his person and interest that are right in your wheel house. Sievers was the first step of a much bigger pyramid. The President needs someone with...your particular skill set to assist him. We can pay you, handsomely, for your time."

Something about that guys voice just rubbed him the wrong way, but Leon found himself intrigued. So he watched the data fly across the screen and found himself answering, "...I would be honored."

He had no idea what he was getting himself into.

* * *

**Rojo Muerte, Spain - 2004**

* * *

The muzzle of the gun dug into his back even as the smooth dulcet tones invited, "Put your hands where I can see them."

His left brow arched. His eyes narrowed. After everything he'd done to find this girl, he'd be  _damned_ if some smooth talking femme fatale was going to stop him in a dusty old bedroom in a dirty old castle. She had no idea who she was taunting here.

So he told her, "Sorry, sweetheart...but following a lady's lead just isn't my style."

The amusement was rich in her voice as she cooed, "...put them up  _now."_

The hammer clicked on her gun. He turned at the same time. She made a grunt of surprise as he put her arm in a joint lock and made a swipe for her gun. That's when things went a little haywire. She didn't submit, she straight up kicked the gun out of his hand. Her long, long, long leg swept up and over in a clever one handed front cartwheel. The world narrowed to a handful of seconds.

He could see it happen. What he did, it was more than just luck, it was training. He could assess and assimilate the situation in a handful of moments. He could see two potential outcomes faster than he could draw a breath.

One - he stayed where he was and dove for the gun. She'd get it first and likely shoot him.

Two - he could race her for it. She'd still get it, but she'd be at his mercy...because he drew his knife as he ran. The gun hit her palm and was spun out to face him, his left hand caught her wrist to shove it aside and the knife was cocked sideways at the delicate curve of her throat.

For just a brief flicker, he watched the flash of something like admiration across her pretty face, as he told her, "Word of advice, honey, next time try knives...works infinitely better for close encounters."

He divested her of her gun and hit the release to spill the magazine to the floor as he tossed it the opposite direction. Her head tilted as he paced away and she greeted, "...hmm...Leon...long time, no see."

His expression was less than impressed as he turned back to face her. "Ada...I'd say I'm surprised to see you, but I'm not. You're like a cockroach, you turn up anytime things get quiet."

Her lips split in a wry grin. She tugged the glasses off her face and mused, "You don't sound happy to see me."

His blue eyes rolled as he replied, "If you're here, someone's dead or betrayed, probably both and possibly me...so I'm not really ever glad to see you, Ada. What do you want?"

She looked incredible, damn her, in a gorgeous but completely useless red dress. She looked like she should be going to a party instead of battling bad guys in a dirty village. What was she doing here?

Ada tilted her head again, "Maybe I wanted to see you again."

He laughed now, harsh and dry. His voice dripped sarcasm as he said, "Right. You could have popped up at Starbucks to share a latte, but you felt like in the middle of a nuthouse filled with parasitic freaks was a better way to get reacquainted. What's the plan? You wanna fuck over there on that dusty bed? I can just poke it out of my pants and jerk up your skirt."

A curious thing to know she'd missed him. Tracking him was cake, honestly, he was as loud and obvious as a full fledged fart in a church. There was no mistaking he was there to make trouble. He'd torn apart the town and tramped across the countryside like a ham handed savior on the back of a tank. Sneaking wasn't exactly his forte, but in fairness, he wasn't trying to be quiet.

He was trying to save the girl. God knew that Leon Kennedy didn't need to be a gentle toned savior. He was there to fuck up their world and walk away the winner. It was a clever way of keeping the eyes on him so Ada could operate in the shadows for her own reasons.

He was so good at it! She'd kept him alive to be sure he covered her tracks. Of course, her own personal feelings made that part entertaining as well. She'd been impressed with his fervor the last time she'd seen him. He was as good in bed as he was in the field. An impressive creature, he kept her curious about what he'd do next.

She was contemplating the ramifications of becoming his lover. She knew, in one hand, it would make him more her creature. In the other, it would make him closer to her than anyone had been in a long time. She didn't want him getting into her business. She wanted him, in a purely feminine way, but she'd never in her life risked her safety for a piece of ass. She wasn't going to start now.

Right now she knew if there was anyone in this god forsaken shit hole that could get her the sample she wanted and take down all the enemies in the in between, it was him. She just needed to keep him alive to do it for her.

So she tilted her head again, "Would that make you fight harder, I wonder? And would you really say no if I offered?"

He rolled his eyes again and turned away from her. "Don't flatter yourself, Ada. I'm here doing my job. I don't have time to play footsie with you."

"And yet you offered. You suggested it." She tried her hand and was delighted to see he let her. He let her touch the inside of his forearm and rub with two fingers down to his tactical glove. He didn't touch her back, but he didn't lean away either. Tough guy or not, his body wanted her. They were both aware of it. "...have you missed me, Leon?"

He finally stepped back, and to her delight? He didn't answer her. "So it's true what I hear."

"...which part?"

"You- workin with Wesker."

Oh. That part. She grinned. "I've been known to work with the enemy when it suits my purposes."

"And what purpose is that?"

She winked at him and tossed her glasses on the floor. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

Fruistrated, he gave her an angry expression, "What are you doing here, Ada? And why show yourself to me?"

She tilted her head again, "Really? Take a minute and think about that. You went down in that cabin...who do you think protected you while you slept? And do you think that just anyone was dangling outside that window to lure away the enormous bulk of that bastard Mendez? You do have a penchant for courting your own demise, Leon, I'd suggest you think about who your guardian angel has been all this time."

Shit.  _Shit._ His brows shot up. She sighed and shrugged, "That's right, handsome,  _me._ I'm on your side. When are you going to get that?"

"I don't even know what that means, Ada. Whose side is mine?"

"A good question." She watched the timer on the glasses flash a warning and added, "Be careful, Leon. There's much more at play here than you think. Remember what I told you about Project Pentacle. I'll do what I can to help you. Hurry."

The glasses flashed, throwing the world in light, and she rolled away to grab her gun and escape off the balcony while he called after her.

* * *

She tracked him while she played the game with Wesker that would ultimately end with one of them dead. Her agenda was her own, it always had been, and the puppet in this story hadn't ever been Leon, not really, it was Wesker. Wesker was her puppet, even if he thought she was his. Leon wasn't her play thing, he was her weapon.

He did her dirty work like an unwitting golem. The question of whether or not she was the good guy or the bad guy would haunt him forever, she was sure of that. The sad news? He wasn't the good guy either.

He was a puppet after all, but not hers. Simmons. The strings above his head made the handsome hero dance in ways he couldn't even begin to guess at. Not yet. Not until he was ready to open his eyes and see how deeply tethered he was to his masters.

The time would come for him to cut those strings and free himself, but it wasn't today. Today, he was the guy in need of a hero himself. Too stupid, too brave, too selfless to turn back and save himself. She had to give it to him, he was determined to rescue a single girl in the clutches of a terrorist cult.

Even Wesker was impressed with his fortitude. And Wesker was  _never_ impressed.

As Ada waited beneath the crumbling tower where he battled the mutated Salazar, Wesker wondered across the communicator in her palm, "Can he be compelled to switch sides?"

She considered this. Even if he could be, would she want him to? He was useful to her on the "right" side. In the dark, if they both dwelled there, he'd become another liability. She shook her head, "He's too righteous. He believes what he's doing makes a difference."

Wesker sighed, "Another Redfield. Maybe worse than him as Redfield is still a dog on a leash. This one...he seems to be the type to snap the leash when it suits him."

Ada considered that as well. He was right. Leon did march to his own drum when it suited him. She'd heard he'd seduced Sievers wife to get intel. It was a bold move, a dangerous one, and one she'd done herself when necessary. It stunk of spy instead of agent. He could, it seemed, dip a toe or a dick into the dark when it suited him. He wasn't above using his pretty face and his virile body to reach his own end.

It intrigued her. It added a layer of potential double cross that compelled her to remember he was, in a word, a genius. Though she might suspect he was a good natured hero, maybe he was really as convoluted as she was. Maybe...Leon Kennedy had his own agenda all along.

She tapped her toe of her heel while she dwelled on that. What if he was playing against her? What if he was more than a pretty face with an altruistic soul? Could she look down the barrel of her gun and end him? Or had she over played her own game to the point she was invested in him?

She heard the skitter of boots and the heavy jerk of a round chambered. Her brows lifted as she turned her head to find him starring down the barrel of his own at her. Her mouth turned up, "Hiya, handsome. Fancy a lift?"

The cave trembled. The walls shook. The tower was coming down. His best bet was in that boat.

Without a word, he took it. He leaped in beside her as she hit the throttle and raced out into the dark.

His gaze drifted over her profile as she rushed across the cold water. The night curled around them, chilly and tempest tossed, the sky grumbled and a spatter of rain hit his skin as the ocean tossed foam up from its disturbed depths. The boat sliced through the inky water while he watched her. Why was she always there when things turned bleak and hopeless?

What did she want from him?

His gaze trailed over her narrow waist. It lingered for a moment at the press of her nipples against the red cloth of her dress. She was cold. It was freezing on the open water, so it was no surprise, but there was the old trickle of a want to lower her top and put his mouth to her begging breasts. That was simple, it was as old as time, it was sheer physical attraction a beautiful woman.

He'd probably always want her. A simple biological urge to fuck propelled him to do that. His gaze traveled down to her exposed thigh in that heavy slit. The holster held her gun, but the wound above it gave him pause. It trickled blood down her porcelain skin to the velcro strap.

When he something cut her?

She was flawless save for that one wound.

Testing the limits of it, his hand shifted over. She let him touch her thigh. His thumb swept along the bloody mark, his fingers curled under the toned bottom of that smooth thigh. She arched a brow at him as the boat zipped toward the cliffs. "...like what you see?"

Without a word, he pressed his thumb against the wound - hard. She gasped. Her hands jerked the wheel and the boat spun out, smacking its side into the craggy cliff. He grunted and Ada gripped his throat to shove him back against his seat. She flashed a wolfish grin at him, "...little bastard. Like hurting me?"

He had the strangest urge to kiss her. An odd feeling given that he'd just jabbed her wounded leg to fuck with her. He murmured, "...depends."

"On?"

"On what you want from me, Ada. Stop fucking with me and just tell me."

She leaned toward him. Their noses brushed. His gaze flicked to her mouth, and she was aware of it. Her dark eyes sparkled as she told him, "Yeah. We both want that, don't we? Sadly...I don't fuck the infected. Save yourself, you fool, and stop being a hero."

He licked his lips and the corner turned up, "Sorry, kid. I yam, what I yam."

Amused, Ada laughed and the whoosh of her grapple gun was loud in the rustling night. She shook her head at him, "Noble bastard...you'll die being a hero."

"...better than living a liar."

Ah. Her eyes flashed. She curled her nails against his throat and had his answering them. They flashed with warning and...what? Want. Yeah. That was a trigger for her too. Danger. It was their bread and butter here.

She told him, "...see ya later, handsome. Try not to die on me...I still need you."

The gun whooshed. Her hand slid off his throat. He watched her body shoot upward and the boat spun out, throwing him sideways as he grabbed for the wheel to steady it. It bumped the cliff and had him sighing, "...women."

There was no one else in the world quite like that one.

* * *

Her heels clanged as she ran. She'd been stupid. She'd under estimated that idiot Krauser. She was on borrowed time. She could hear them struggle. She knew it was a fifty-fifty shot that Leon wouldn't even need her help here.

She couldn't take the risk.

She heard him shout. She heard the whoosh of war. She heard the strike of steel. Out of time. Out of luck. She reached the edge of heavy metal platform and heard Leon shout in rage...from the bottom. He was down. He was done. All the skill in the world wouldn't stop monster strength. Jack was fucking with him. Jack could rip his head from his shoulders and be done with it.

Jack wasn't Jack anymore. Not really.

The knife nicked the hollow of Leon's throat and spilled blood. His roar of anger echoed around the room. Impressed that he wouldn't die begging, Ada lifted her gun and shot the goddamn knife right out of the hands of his attacker.

It shot off and stuck in the grated steel with a clang. Jack took a kick to the chest at the same moment from his erstwhile captive. He was thrown backward into a flip as Leon gained his feet.

As he made his angry exit, he cursed, "I will enjoy watching you die...comrade."

Ada leaped down as Jack fled. She tilted her head at Leon as he tugged the knife free from the steel grated floor and mused, "Old friends?"

"...not exactly. You're my big hero today, Ada. Ready to start telling me why?"

As he turned, she gripped a hand into his vest. He froze, watching her face, as she lifted the other to swipe at the blood on his cheek, "An inch above and he'd have taken your eye."

She said it softly. He answered that tone with his own quiet one, "...I know."

"...a waste of a perfectly good eye." She moved her thumb from his cheek and he mused, "You got my blood on your hand."

She felt her mouth tilt into a smile, "Seems that way." She tucked the pad her thumb in his mouth and he sucked it clean of the blood, no thinking. Something in her groin tightened. She liked it. She like his eagerness to please her.

Obedient. Somehow, he was without even trying. His face didn't say that. His face was irritated. He didn't like doing it. He liked even less that it had be instinctive. The coppery taste of his own blood was lost after a brief flash.

Through gritted teeth, he hissed, "...stop fucking with me, god damnit, and tell me why you're here."

Ada winked at him and swirled away when he moved to take her arm. "...some of other time maybe."

She heard him curse as she leaped to the floor below.

He got the impression he'd be playing this game with her for the rest of his life. For better or worse, she was a part of him he couldn't let go of.


	7. Chapter 7

****

* * *

 

**Part Two: The Bitch in the Red Dress**

* * *

**A turning of the tables.**

**A start of an obsession.**

**A double edged sword the kills as it cleaves.**

* * *

**Rojo Muerte, Spain - 2004**

* * *

He staggered into the underground room and nearly went to his knees. Ada hurried after him, concerned he'd pushed himself too far. The loss of the pilot had broken something in him, she was sure of that. He was losing to the thing inside of him, badly.

She wasn't sure how much time he had, but that goddamn girl he was trying to save was costing him his life. She wasn't sure how to get rid of the girl without fucking up all the plans she had in place, but she'd like to. His heroism would be the death of him.

He stammered out a response when she asked him if he was alright. Her hand touched his arm above the elbow pad he wore. He trembled and covered her hand with his. A rare moment of weakness. It made her more worried than anything.

And then? He just...stopped. He rose to his full height and stopped shaking. Impressed with his resolve, she cautioned, "We need to get that thing out of you."

He turned toward her. There was something on his face that should have alarmed her, but she was too busy watching his eyes skim over her face. She had another moment of stupid that seemed to crop up around him.

She didn't think he'd hurt her. In fact, he looked like he might kiss her instead. Her head tilted back for it, curious how it would feel with that fever on him, and his hands grabbed her throat so hard it made her head burst with alarms.

The pretty blue of his eyes went blood shot and red, his hands squeezed hard and relentless, and he lifted her right off the ground by two inches as he tried to choke her to death. The panic hit the survival, her hand grabbed for the thin bladed knife at her thigh, her vision went red and white and she jabbed him hard in the left outer thigh. He grunted and her knee came up to hit him square in the balls.

That worked like a charm.

He dropped her and grabbed for his junk, tumbling to one knee. Ada had a moment of inner reflection as she realized she hadn't stabbed him in the goddamn heart. Why?

She needed him alive. It was that simple...wasn't it?

As he rolled to his feet, she backed away, afraid of him for the first time since she'd met him. A curious feeling. He wasn't just Leon now, he was Leon...and a parasite that wanted blood. He was the most capable creature on two legs, cursed with a monster that wanted death.

A dangerous, dangerous, dangerous man.

As he lifted a hand to her, she told him, "Stop chasing that girl and get that thing out of you. Every second you wait, it's hatching more inside of you. The next time, I won't just knee you in the balls...I'll put this knife in your throat."

Leon shook his head, stumbling, "I can't...I  _can't._ I won't leave her to die."

"...fool. I can't help you anymore. You'll get us both killed. I won't sit around and wait for you to turn."

She left him in the room. She heard him call after her. She didn't look back.

But she didn't know why she didn't just end him now, before he could turn into the thing they were fighting. It was the first time she was afraid that he might not make it out alive.

And the first time she realized it mattered to her if he didn't.

* * *

It nearly cost her her life protecting him, but he made it. When the clock ticked to zero, he even gave up the sample like it was nothing. They both realized he could have fought her for it. They both knew he might have won.

They both knew he'd never hurt her.

It was a painful truth between them - she couldn't kill him and he couldn't hurt her. Stalemate. Checkmate. Damnit.

So he offered it to her in a way that made her almost want to let him keep it. Softly, she wondered, "...why?"

And he answered, "I saved the girl...make sure that wasn't in vain."

He trusted her. Somehow, after all of it, he trusted her to do the right thing. He was such a fucking boy scout under that hardening shell. Damn him - she didn't want to respect him.

Annoyed, Ada considered what it would cost to pull the plug on him. If she cut him loose, he'd be dead in a week with how he operated. Smart didn't make him savvy. He'd do the right thing and get himself a bullet between the eyes.

If she backed away to spare herself, she'd have wasted all the time she'd spent cultivating him. She couldn't let a little burst of conscious regarding his life sway her about her purpose here. Whatever she felt about him, he was a means to an end, and when the time came - she'd use him like any other weapon.

As she leaned on the wall of her safe house over looking Madrid, she let the cool air swirl around her belly. The bra she wore was simple and red. It showed the scars of her survival in Raccoon above it. He'd saved her goddamn life there as well. They both knew it. She'd fallen to her death with a bullet in her shoulder, true, but the wound of her leg would have been the death of her without him.

She had to keep the reins on this game or she'd find herself the horse instead of the rider. She didn't do well on the bottom.

There was a click of her lock releasing on her door. Her gun was on him as he stepped inside -unarmed, unconcerned, undeterred. He looked tired, bruised, and still had flecks of dried blood over his face and neck. The shirt he wore was grimey with sweat and filth. The vest was gone, lost likely to the last shock rod he'd had shoved against it on that island.

As he closed the door behind him, Ada instructed, "Go back the way you came, Leon, or I'll finish what Saddler started."

He shook his head as he turned to face her. "No, you won't."

Damn him.

She laughed, angry that he was right, angry that he  _knew_ he was right. "The sample is gone. You're wasting your time here."

"...I didn't come for the fucking sample."

He looked so mad. No, not mad...not exactly. What? She'd betrayed him on that island, but not really. He'd expected her to. He knew she would. He also knew he'd get that sample back. He'd stuck a tracker on it. He knew where it was. He had a team in place to intercept it. It was in transition from one place to another. It was on a chopper over the Baltic. Knowing the "where" was almost as important as getting the damn thing back.

Curious, she wondered, "How'd you find me?"

He didn't answer. He'd reached striking distance. It was time to shoot him or get rid of the gun. She couldn't bring herself to lower it, but she couldn't bring herself to fire it either. It was useless.

The barrel brushed his chest. His hand snaked out to grip the back of her neck, and she realized what he was there for. Her eyes flared. Her lips curled. She laughed, soft and taunting, "...you find me to fuck me?"

She let the gun drop as he drug her in. She let him do that too. She liked it. She liked that he was hooked enough on her to stalk her. She liked it a great deal.

She had him. He was  _hers._ She'd pushed him just far enough to make him track her. A victory, on the eve of her feeling like maybe, just maybe, she'd pushed them both too far. No. She'd stuck her claws in him and infected him.

She was the parasite in him after all.

His mouth brushed over hers. His lips tasted coppery. She murmured, against his mouth, "...you stink."

And he thrust his tongue into her.

Oh, it was a rough kiss. It left her breathless. It was possessive and angry. It raped when it might have worshiped. His other hand curled around her throat. It was the second time that night he'd tried to choke her.

It was the first time he did it with his tongue instead of his hands.

Her back hit the dresser with a clatter as he forced her backward. She had no choice but to let him as her butt hit the surface and slid across it. She opened her thighs to let him in. He tilted her face back to kiss her so hard it made her jaw ache.

Ada's hands grabbed for his face to hold on. The hand around the back of her neck went down and right into her panties. She made a grab for it, gasping, "...wait-"

And he plunged two fingers into her. She bowed. She gasped. She scrambled her hands into his dirty shirt as he fingered her fast and hard. He was so crude, dirty, he grunted against her mouth, "...I'm tired of waiting."

Her head swirled. Part want, part deviousness...if she let him have her, really have her, would it bind him to her forever? Would it make him her slave? Or would it create an emotional link that was best avoided?

The want of her kept him chasing. The need of it kept him running. He was pushing faster, harder, further...to spite her or fuck her or figure her out. If she gave him all of her, let him use her and cum in her and claim her, he'd stop. He'd lose interest. It was what men did.

She needed him desperate, not sated. She gripped gripped his wrist to pull his hand free and his thumb found her swollen clit. Ada panicked, humped toward the relentless glide of his thumb in spite of herself, and protested, gasping, "-damnit- _don't."_

Don't? What? It didn't matter. He flattened one hand on her collarbone to hold her against the mirror and finished her off. She grabbed his wrist to thrust his fingers into her harder, made him laugh, and came humping against his hand. The orgasm had teeth. It ripped her apart as she shouted into his plunging mouth.

That was fine. It was ok. Her body needed the release. On the heels of what had happened, it felt good to give up that much.

His fingering hand left her quivering body to grip her panties and what? Rip them off her?

She put a foot into his belly and pushed him away, shaking. "...no."

He actually made a grab for her again and she gripped the knife on his thigh, jerked it free, and put the point against his wounded throat. He froze, nostrils flared like a bull, as she told him, "I said no. Don't make me say it again, Leon. I'm not a woman you force. Back off."

"...no? You just soaked my hand."

"Biological response. Happens when you stimulate the clitoris. You took anatomy, right?"

His jaw flexed. Angry. He was so angry. Why? That she resisted him? Did he think she'd cum, roll over, and let him fuck her like a dog? Her thighs were twitching, sure, but she could still kill him in the aftermath of her powerful release.

There wasn't a man alive good enough to fuck her into submission.

He stepped into the knife point and it drew blood in a smooth red line. She tilted her head like a curious dog, "Worth dying for? Just to fuck me? I'm not that good, Mr. Kennedy, and neither are you."

"We both know exactly how good you are. What's the problem, Ada? Can't enjoy it if you're not on top?"

He pressed against the blade and made her nostrils flare like a hunter scenting that blood. He wasn't wrong. She was the dominant bed partner. It's just the way she worked. She could, and had, given over to a man in her time to let him mount her, but those days were long gone. She didn't lay placidly beneath a thrusting dick and wait for an orgasm.

And she didn't give over just because a man put his hand in her pants.

Softly, she warned, "You're playing dangerously close to your own death here, Leon. I said back off. I won't say it again."

The knife spilled red blood down to pool in the hollow of his throat. It was a good moment. It was a hard truth. She'd created her own monster here in a way. She'd played with him enough that he was, almost, to the breaking point. He was almost ready to fight her to claim her.

Oh, she liked that. She liked it. He'd hurt himself to have her. But he surprised her and returned, "We both know if I wanted to, I could take you. Whatever game you're playing, Ada, I can play too. Maybe from now on it'll be you looking over your shoulder for me. Maybe the next time you want to jerk me around and use me, I'll give you the fucking you keep begging for."

Her eyes flared wide with amusement, "Do I? Am I begging you now? I said no."

He laughed too, dark, angry, and his hand went right between her legs to rub her over her wet panties. She didn't stab him, but she didn't pull the knife away either as he remarked, "Yeah...you always get wet when you don't want it?"

She'd liked the baby version of him. Sweet, soft, determined and noble. She was almost entranced with the grown one. He was so many shades of something she couldn't peg. A warrior, a wounded soul, a desperate dog on the leash of a powerful master. She wanted to see how far he'd go before he burned out and faded away.

Whose leash was he on? Simmons? Or  _hers_?

So she told him, "You sound like a rapist. It's a huge turn off. I don't have any interest in being your cum dump because you nearly got yourself killed being a fucking idiot. You can touch me again when you stop being such a goddamn hero. Until then? Get your fucking hand off me."

His teeth flashed and he taunted, "You wave a red flag in the face of the bull, Ada, eventually he runs you down."

Her mouth curved up into a sly smile, "You can run me down when you earn it, Leon. Right now? You're not even close."

They stared each other down until he finally jerked his hand off her and stepped away. She tossed his knife onto the floor and watched it spin. She didn't even move from the dresser, she stayed there - legs splayed, damp red panties on full display- and watched him pace like a caged tiger.

The anger on him was palpable. He gnashed his teeth and spat, "Always your way, Ada...you bitch."

He turned toward the door, stalking toward it. She called after him, "My way is the only way, Leon. When you understand that, you'll stop fighting me so hard...don't forget your knife."

He tossed an angry look over his shoulder, "Keep it. Consider it a consolation prize."

Ada considered him as he jerked open the door, "Did you show up here just to fuck me?"

He laughed, gathering himself by the door, "No. I showed up here to let you know I can play games too. The next time we meet, Ada, you better hope you know what the rules are."

"...you think you're winning?" She sounded so amused.

He shrugged and returned, "You so sure you won't lose?"

Wolfishly grinning, she taunted, "...and yet who showed up here like a desperate stalker in the middle of the night? Ask yourself whose game this is, Leon, and how much longer you think you can play it."

"...fuck you, Ada. Fuck you."

"...I'll let you know when you can. Until then...see ya, handsome."

With a curse, he snapped the door shut behind him.

Shit. He was the most dangerous game she'd ever played. However it ended, it was going to burn them both alive to play it. The thing about it? She was aroused. Fucking with him, fighting against him, drawing his blood and watching him resist the urge to take her against her will...it turned her own. Part of that was power, part of it was years of being at the bottom of a profession where she was anyone's meat that wanted her and rising to the top to be the best.

She wasn't going to give herself to any man who touch her anymore. Those days were done. But for a moment, a single moment, she'd been tempted to lay back on that dresser and let him.

A dangerous, dangerous, delicious game. How did it end?

She licked her lips, laughed softly, and slid her hand into her panties to finish what he'd started.

* * *

**Dorchestor, Idaho- 2005**

* * *

He could watch her tits bouncing in the window beside the couch. Face down, ass up, she moaned and thrust back on him while the television tossed light and shadows around them. His fingers curled into her dark hair to pull her head back. He put his teeth to her neck to suck.

She screamed and took it, pistoning her body like a race horse, as he fucked her so hard it knocked his teeth together.

She had big, lush, centerfold tits. His hands gathered them up to hold them and let them overtake his hands while he hammered her. She mewled on all fours like a cat in heat as he destroyed her. His thumb hooked into her slick asshole with a pop of sound, she bucked like he'd pressed fire into her bowels, and his hand slapped her ass to spur her on. She loved it. She slapped so hard back on him she nearly threw him off.

She came wet and loud, making a sound like a gasping sob. He jerked out, tugged off the rubber, and decorated her back in pearly ropes of cum. Done. Porno flick fucking in the dark while Jay Leno made jokes on the t.v. beyond them.

Saturday night success after a mission.

Uselessly empty.

He wasn't sure what he was craving here, but it wasn't this girl. It wasn't this moment. It wasn't any of this.

As she lay on the carpet, panting, he rose to go into the kitchen pour himself a whiskey.

Sweaty, bored, he leaned on the counter sipping the spicy liquid as she rose from the floor to move toward him. She was all hips and tits, she had a body that would probably go to fat in a few years but was lush and wanton now. She belonged on a stripper pole, not in a SWAT uniform.

Angela curled against his front with her curly dark hair around her gorgeous face. "...shit. They weren't kidding."

Leon arched a brow at her and she added, "Best fucking guy in the business."

He laughed, smacked her ass, and headed out of the kitchen. She was good in bed. She was entertaining. Pretty, just uninhibited enough to fuck like a whore, and eager to please him. He'd had a moment in Hardvardville when he thought about trying to get Claire into bed...but the truth was he respected her too much to do it. Worse yet? He respected her brother too much as well. Claire would want love, and he wasn't in a place to give it to her.

Angela had come on like a woman with a mission. She'd lost her brother, grieved like any self hating narcissist, and used sex to hide her emotional baggage. He got it - hell it was his modus operandi - and he used her the way she used him, without mercy.

The heavy scent of marijuana had him standing in the bathroom watching her smoke a joint in his living room. He almost joined her, but the goddamn tests with the government were so sporadic. His luck, he'd toke up, get pissed, and lose his clearance.

Better to avoid that particular vice in favor of a long career.

He showered. She joined him. He fucked her again against the wall while she creamed.

She left while he slept. Which was fine. He had no plans to see her again anyway.

As he stood in the mirror studying his face, his finger slid against the small scar near the hollow of this throat, and he knew what he was missing. Damn her. She was in his head, she was on his skin - he couldn't get her off.

He just wasn't sure when he'd stopped wanting to.

* * *

**Mincoxit Mining Camp -Adjacent -2005**

* * *

He was on a chopper to San Trope the following morning anyway. The long week that followed was nothing but dead bodies and disease. He was eyeball deep in a clean up regarding a T-Virus spill in neighboring villages when the nightmares started.

He'd gone a week after Spain without them, but whatever was left in him from the plagas seemed determined to haunt him. So he awoke shouting and fighting against ghosts that had no name. It pissed him off. It made him angry and desolate and raw.

He took missions to break up his descent into whatever quagmire of neuroses was going to be his cross to bear after surviving. A school filled with children turned into zombies. A blood bath of bodies and backpacks and barrettes in once blonde hair turned pink with death.

He traded intel with a snitch of his regarding the backers for The Organization - Ada's outfit. The sneaky subdivision of the former dregs of Umbrella. The whispers regarding Wesker's attempt to rebirth the dismantled giant were wide spread.

He found himself on the wrong end of a raid on a potential hiding place in the Sudan. He lost most of the men they'd sent to assist him. It was a trap, an ugly one, he led them in and watched them fall. The virus in that compound was something he couldn't understand, hadn't seen, and didn't know how to fight.

It made you hallucinate, it left you confused and lost. His men turned on each other when they couldn't escape the affects. They murdered each other in cold blood. They panicked and killed what they saw as monsters and ghosts and things that made no sense.

The gas was blue. The air was cold suddenly as if winter had settled in the desert. He found himself staggering into the dark to hide in a corner while the world ran with blood and bullets around him.

Infected. He was infected. Not like the plagas, this was something that was merciless. It had him the moment it touched him. Everywhere he turned, he saw the enemy. He fought in the pit to save that girl. The one that was real? Wasn't real? What was real?

A man with a hook for a hand grabbed for his face. Leon swung his gun up and it was knocked from his hands. The hookman flashed in, the hookman flashed out, the hookman sank that hook into his sternum, impaled him, and lifted him off the ground while the blood pooled beneath his dangling feet.

It laughed in his face while he grunted and twitched like a gutted pig.

And he died smelling the coppery stench of his own blood.

* * *

**Mincoxit Mining Camp -Adjacent -2005**

* * *

She stood over him. She had that moment where she had to decide if he was worth saving. She had a moment to realize she'd save him until she had what she wanted and could finally let him go.

She'd stood over Jack Krauser while he tried to crawl and he'd spat, "...what is this?! For that pretty faced pansy you keep chasing?"

Ada had leaned down beside his bloody ear and confessed, "Yes. You tried to kill him once in Columbia and his goddamn chivalry got him tortured. I told you - I don't like people who play with my toys...and you almost broke him. I don't like to share, Jack, and I don't take kindly to cleaning up messes made by idiots. You were dead the first time you drew a drop of his blood."

Gagging, gurgling, Jack had laughed darkly, "...bitches...even the ones with balls are still pussies. You go ahead and get revenge for your piece of ass, princess, maybe next time you can climb that tower on all his pretty hair to save him."

Ada had pressed her stiletto into his flayed back while he cursed and grunted in pain. "It's not about feelings, Jack, it's about possession. Until I'm done with him, he's mine. And you don't get to touch what's mine without losing a hand. In this case...we'll start with an arm."

He was still screaming when she severed that arm he'd been so proud of. He was still screaming when she left him without his balls on that rooftop. He stopped screaming when the bomb went off.

She doubted Leon would appreciate the poetic justice of it, really. He was still a good man under the rapidly thickening layer of jaded loss that coated him. Torture wasn't in his wheelhouse. He didn't kill for sport or revenge. She didn't either, but Jack Krauser was a man who used his balls and his dick to make women nothing. She made sure it was his balls that went first and made sure he died a crying mess instead of a man.

It was personal, and she was usually so careful to avoid that. She usually made sure to not make her job personal, but she kept picturing the face of Leon on those security cameras while he'd recovered in Columbia. Torture tended to make monsters out of men, or mire them in misery until they were no longer functional.

Leon had recovered, but he'd never been the same. She admitted to herself that she'd punished Jack for taking that shine off him. She'd always enjoyed the purity of the light inside of Leon before he'd lost it in that jungle. The flicker of hope was still inside of him, she knew that, but it would never burn as bright again.

That kind of death was immeasurable. She wanted it punished to the fullest extent. She'd done it in a way he'd never know.

But he was hers now - for better or worse- to protect and propel into the place where she needed him. Until the day came that she could let him go, she had to keep him going. She had to keep him alive. She had to keep him fighting.

They asked her where to take him. Should they take him back to his people? Should they leave him at a hospital in Beijing?

For better or for worse, it was up to her to fix him. So she looked at the man in the mask and told him, "...no. Take him to Kyoto. Give him to a man named Itsuki. He'll know what to do with him."

Just like that - he was about to be welcomed into a part of her life that she'd never opened to anyone. She was praying the decision didn't come back to bite them both in the ass. Itsuki would care for him, she didn't need to follow.

But she settled her affairs with the mission she was on...and she arrived in Japan three days after him anyway.

It was time to see how far she'd go to make sure Leon Kennedy lived.


	8. Chapter 8

**Part Two: The Bitch in the Red Dress**

* * *

**A touch mixed with temptation.**

_**A woman flush with secrets.** _

_**A man teetering on the edge. How far can he lean before he falls?** _

* * *

**Kagoshima, Japan - 2005**

* * *

Ada leaned on the railing, feeling the soft breeze off the ocean, and watching him sleep. She'd thought he was dead when she found him. He was covered in blood and lying on his side. His eyes had been the only thing in his face not red.

He'd been feverish and loud. He'd nearly gotten them killed. The infection set in before they could catch it.

He had multiple stab wounds over his back and chest. Something had cut him the fuck up. What? She'd had a team raid the compound to find it empty. The gas released had turned all of Leon's men into monsters. They'd slaughtered each other in some kind of blood bath that was still a mystery.

She'd found a bloody hook in the center of the pit where they'd likely found him. Alive, he'd been taken back to that lab and kept there while the nerds that ran it tried to decide the best course of action. Apparently, science didn't extend to medicine.

Two hours more of being kept in that place and he'd have died from blood loss. The least they could have done was bind his damn wounds. She wondered sometimes how the best minds in the world were often the dumbest.

Itsuki had muttered and cursed in heavy Japanese - the Kyoto Ben dialect that flavored his speech had been particularly thick. He'd spouted off angry rants until Ada had told him, "Enough. Can you fix him or not?"

He'd given her an angry expression and returned, "...you bring me this mess. You give me no explanations. I do this for you now, because you are my blood...but you do not make it easy."

Ada had lifted her brows at him, "That's not a yes, Itsuki."

"I cannot say yes. I can only say - I will try."

It worried her that he couldn't say yes. Itsuki was the best healer in the world. What did it mean when he was unable to save someone?

For eight days Leon lingered somewhere between life and death. The infection being drawn from him often resulted in his screaming. Itsuki had bound him to the table before each extraction, but it didn't stop the man from fighting it.

Jerking. Screaming. Roaring. Raging. He was a beast.

Finally, unable to listen anymore, Ada had gripped his face and slapped him back on the table while he hissed and spit. She'd warned him, "Quit resisting, Leon. Stop fighting him or I will sedate you."

Glassy eyed, confused, he'd still been enough of himself to know she was threatening him with drugs. He kept resisting those too. He seemed adamant about it. She gave him that courtesy and didn't shoot him up with morphine or anything else, but it made the pain he felt nearly unbearable.

Shaking with it, he'd held her gaze and told her, "...alright," Voice hoarse, scratchy, weak, "...whiskey. Please."

A small thing really in the face of all that pain. She'd gotten the sake off the shelf behind Itsuki and popped the cork. With a hand behind his head, she'd elevated Leon's neck enough to let him swallow it down.

After a third of the bottle had disappeared, he flopped back on the table, panting, "...thank you...shit."

It was the moment she realized it wasn't just the pain, it was the withdrawals. Whatever else he'd been, Leon was an alcoholic. He'd gone days without a drink, and his body was letting him know it. Without it, his body might start to hurt itself trying to detox.

She brought him sake every morning and evening after that. It wasn't right to feed his addiction, but she couldn't risk him having a goddamn heart attack from going cold turkey either. Besides, he was much more pleasant with a few drinks in him.

Even Itsuki was grateful for the change in his demeanor.

When he was stable, she had him moved from Kyoto to Kagoshima. It was more remote. It was less likely to bring attention. Eventually, he'd need to get out and start moving again. She didn't want him sticking out like a sore thumb and drawing attention during his recovery.

At dinner the night before, Itsuki had studied her until Ada had broken the silence, "...what?"

"What is this warrior? He is not like the others."

By "others", he meant the men, or the occasional woman, she sometimes brought home to her bed and never saw again. Selective, Ada was always careful about anyone she bedded. She never took a man to her bed without thoroughly vetting him first. She didn't do one night stands in bars. She made sure each lover that shared her bed was clean, safe, and unconnected to her world by any tether.

They were always, always, always brief. Never more than a day or two of time with her. She didn't date. She never, ever secured a relationship with a man. It wasn't her style. It wasn't of interest to her.

That Leon had been here, in her house, for weeks was a mystery to Itsuki.

She'd held the eyes of the older man and returned, "He is not a lover. He's an asset."

Itsuki had given her a droll expression and remarked, "He is not just business,  _kodomo._ I can see you on him."

Curious about it, Ada tilted her head, "Can you?"

Itsuki had held her gaze, "What is he?" Not  _who;_   _what._

Ada had finally answered, "He's like a part of me I can't let go of...let's leave it at that."

Now, as she stood watching him, Ada tried to make sense out of what it meant to be part of someone. It wasn't a good thing. This, with them, was toxic. It wasn't safe or good or reliable. They'd likely use the other up in some kind of race to the win.

She found it odd to know, under the layers of anger and resentment, she trusted him. It brought her pause. She trusted him. She knew, by this point, if he was going to turn her in, take her down, or take her out...he'd have done it. He didn't want her dead. Why?

Someone, somewhere might be stupid enough to use trite cliches such as love. But what was love anyway? A bullshit idea invented by someone to explain away what was, often, just common sense. Common sense said you wanted to fight harder to keep alive those weaker than you. It said protect what was yours. It said pick your battles and don't back down when you did.

People didn't fight for love, they fought to preserve what belonged to them. In whatever way might chafe or discomfit, she'd stamped some kind of possession on Leon Kennedy. He was hers. When she was done with him, maybe she'd set him loose and let him marry or retire or jump off a building to find his own peace or drink himself into oblivion - or maybe not. Maybe she'd reward him by letting him lay claim to her for a handful of days until he'd wrung his balls empty filling her up.

That's what men wanted after all, the fuck of their lives. Hell, the promise of it was making him fight on. Whatever else was true, men fought to get women. At one point, a man had put a horse filled with warriors into a city to claim back his woman.

Likely, Leon saw her as something he wanted to own. He'd keep on pushing until he did. The sad news was that he would never own her. She wasn't something you caught and kept. He'd spend his life chasing an idea instead of a real woman.

She almost felt sorry for him. The power of the pussy, after all, was a potent aphrodisiac.

He stirred on the bed. The ravaged and angry wounds across his sternum brought her padding in barefoot from the balcony. She dipped the cloth in the copper bowl on the nightstand by the bed and bathed away the sweat on his belly and chest. The fever had broken, finally, some time in the night.

The question now was how much damage it had done while it had tried to ward off the infection that was trying to kill him.

The interesting beard on his face was soft when Ada touched a finger to it. It was a curious strawberry blonde that reminded her that someone on his side of the family was a natural redhead.

With a groan, he opened his eyes to slits to find her looking at him. She'd perched a hip on the side of the bed. She wore a kimono in pretty red and black. It was stenciled with cherry blossoms.

The room was beautiful design of glistening dark wood and a wall entirely made of windows that led out to the balcony. The water beyond the raise tossed prettily in the rising sun. He could just make out the volcano beyond the cloud cover.

The cloth slid over his collarbone as he remarked, "...a curiously pretty view for being in hell."

His voice was hoarse, cracking, and his dry lips hurt. He almost asked for water and she slid the cloth of his lips instead and soothed him. His eyes fluttered as he added, "...shit. Am I dead?"

Ada smirked, "Not yet."

"I fucking feel dead. How'd I get here?"

With a sigh, she bathed the cloth down the left side of his ribcage, "This new fangled contraption known as an airplane. You might be familiar with it. It often traverses great distances at incredible rates of speed."

The second the cloth touched his wounded stomach, he hissed and his hand shot out. It grabbed Ada's wrist to halt it.

She tilted her head at him, "...wimp."

The slits of his eyes flashed. Bloodshot, they were still pretty under thick dark lashes in the pooling red of early morning light. "You gut me?"

She laughed now and tugged her hand free to put the cloth back in the bowl. "If I gutted you, you'd know it."

Hoarsely, he asked, "Yeah? How's that?"

"...because you wouldn't have survived it."

She had a point there. He had to admit it. She slid off the bed and disappeared through an oval opening. He heard water begin to strike metal and she returned with a towel to tell him, "Up. The fever broke. The infection is finally done trying to finish you off, but it's time for you to bathe the stench off you."

Softly, he told her, "...I'm naked."

Charmed that he actually sounded slightly sheepish, Ada told him, "Nothing I haven't seen before if you'll remember."

Right. He was being silly.

Leon felt the ache of a long illness in his bones as he shifted. Ada moved to put his arm over her shoulders as she guided him into the bathroom. It was a beautiful room that was glass on three sides and a huge tub in the center. The steam off the churning water alone looked incredible.

Ada eased him toward the steps and he went down into the water. It was fragrant, smelling like jasmine, and felt like nirvana on his tired skin. He let out a sound like he'd just had an orgasm and sank under the water.

Ada retrieved a bar of soap for his hair and set it on the out cropping beside the tub. She picked up a razor and some shaving cream as his head popped free and queried, "How brave are you?"

His eyes, looking alert and inquisitive, turned up to her, "...depends on what you're asking."

She lifted the razor and the cream, "Ever had a spy shave you?"

He considered her. He figured it was stupid to mistrust her at this point. If she wanted him dead, why go to all the trouble of making sure he'd lived? So she could slit his throat with a straight razor and watch him bleed out?

It seemed far fetched even for her, but that didn't mean he had to just do what she wanted either.

So he said, "Sure. You get to put that razor near my throat, but you do it naked, in here, with me."

Her brows winged up. He eyes sparkled with amusement. "You do like to share hot water with me, Mr. Kennedy. Do you think we'll finish what we started the last time we were in it together?"

He gave her bland eyes and replied, "I've been mostly dead all day, Ada, I don't think I'm in a place to fuck your brains out."

She tilted her mouth on a sly smile and set the razor with the cream beside him where his forearm rested. Her hands lifted to the ties on the kimono. He waited for her to ask him to look away, but she didn't even bother.

She held his gaze as she unbelted the kimono and let it drift and fall off her smooth shoulders.

When she'd been dangling, he hadn't looked. In the water when he'd held her and fucked her and nearly had her, he'd been unable. With his fingers inside her while she bucked and moaned, she'd still been in undergarments.

She was none of those things now. She stood there with her head tilted and her eyes on his, almost challenging him to look away. Her hips flared over legs so long they might as well have been their own person. Her breasts were surprisingly full above her nicely toned belly. He wasn't sure why it mattered, but he liked the fact that she hadn't waxed her mons bald either. She had a tasteful little triangle of hair above her slit that was nicely shaped.

Voice almost bored, he asked, "What...you don't like to go bare down there?"

Ada's mouth twitched as she slid into the water, "I'm neither a child, nor a boy so I don't pretend to be by waxing away all my body hair."

As she slid up beside him, he surprised her by shifting in the water. His hand went right between her legs. Her left one caught his biceps in surprise as he cupped her groin. She made a small sound of surprise and he remarked, "I like it."

A dangerous game. It seemed mostly dead or not, he was still a man.

She answered that move with her own. She slid her hand down his lower belly, tickled her fingers through the hair on his own groin, and gripped his dick in her hand. Like a charm, he hardened in her eager palm. She tilted her head at him. "I should say the same."

They studied each other in the steamy water. Finally, amused, they both left go. His arm shifted over the back of the tub again, as she bobbed forward to pick up the razor and the cream.

Leon laid his head back as she lathered him up. Eyes closed, sighing, he admitted, "Maybe playing with you is more fun than asking about where you found me."

Ada brought the razor over his skin. He didn't even flinch. A trusting man, when he wasn't sure the woman at his throat was even on the same side. "We're still trying to figure that out. You...were the only survivor, Leon. I need to know what happened."

He was so quiet she was pretty sure he wasn't going to answer...and then he did. He said quietly, "...I don't know if the hookman was real. I don't know what was. I just know...I've never been that afraid."

Interested, she murmured, "Ever?"

He cracked an eye to look at her, "...ever."

Ada swept the razor over his adam's apple - not even a flicker on that face. She smiled and shook her head, "Brave or stupid...I haven't quite figured it out yet."

"Both. Why am I here, Ada? Why do you keep making sure I don't end up six feet under?"

Softly, she responded, "I told you why. Is it so hard to believe that I like you?"

The razor swept over his cheek. He turned his head and it cut his skin. The blood was very red among the white cream. Their noses brushed as he answered, gruffly, "I don't think you like anyone, Ada. I think you don't like to lose your toys."

He was right about that, but not the first part. She leaned over until their lips brushed and replied, "I like you, Leon. What's not to like? Handsome hero with more balls than brains sometimes. You're charming and funny and ridiculously skilled. You're the package."

He started to speak and her free hand encircled his cock again. Instead, his adam's apple bobbed as he tried to swallow and she added, "And I like your package. Why does it have to be any more complicated than that?"

Hoarsely, he queried, "...you only like me when you can't have me."

Her eyes twinkled with amusement and delight. Did he really think she couldn't?

He was too sore to fuck her, he was right about that. The damage to his body had been extensive. He needed more time to heal. So she started stroking him in the water while the razor stroked down the cleft in his chin.

He trembled, she scraped the razor against the delicate place where his jaw met his neck, and her hand tortured him in the water. Quietly, she taunted, "Don't fight me, Leon. Don't move. Is any of this worth getting your throat slit for?"

Just like that, she had him. He knew it, she knew it - she pulled him with her on that line between danger and need. She had both in her hands. The key to his body and the key to his soul.

Checkmate.

He twitched like he might have a seizure. She watched him try to resist the pleasure she was milking out of him. The razor skimmed the bottom of his jaw. She felt his body shiver as his hands clenched on the wall of the tub and he grunted, "... _fuck."_

Ada laughed breathily and sucked the lobe of his ear into her mouth, murmuring, "You can't. Even you have your limits. Relax, Leon, and let me show you how much I like you."

Stupid. It was stupid. He knew she didn't have any kind of fondness for him. It was just another game, but it was one he enjoyed playing. Here, naked, exposed and vulnerable...it was just them in the water.

It was yards and years of conspiracy, but it was them.

Maybe it cost him nothing to let her jerk him off, and maybe it cost him everything. Either way, he let it happen. Good, bad, or otherwise - he liked her too. Even though he was pretty sure she was the most accomplished liar he'd ever met. Even though she let him touch her, ran away, and came back to torture him.

That would always be his greatest draw for her. He was just willing to walk that line between right and wrong. The right side of him told him to resist her. He kicked that side in the balls and went wrong, enjoying the dirty pleasure that came with giving up some part of his control to a spy.

For a handle of seconds, she'd been sure he'd play right into the hands of that goddamn Redfield girl. She was like a pimple, popping up to mar the surface of a perfectly laid palette. Ada was fairly certain if she didn't hook him completely, that stupid redhead might get right in under the wire and lay claim to some part that was best left buried.

To her surprise, he bypassed the Redfield girl for the frivolous SWAT one. He didn't  _want_ the emotional bond with Claire. He wasn't looking for that.

His careless, filthy, uninterested fucking aroused Ada. She liked him bored and balls deep in a woman without feelings. It was so much more honest when it came to sex. Enough holding each other in the moonlight, sex was as simple as orgasms and goodbyes.

While she stroked him, she urged into his ear, "Tell me about the compound."

He was aware she was milking him for information. She was  _literally_ milking his body to get him to talk, but she didn't have to. He'd have simply told her if she asked. In one hand, they were on the same side. Whatever she was doing, Ada always made good on her promises to him.

She'd replicated the vaccine like she'd promised. She'd assisted him in rescuing hostages as promised. She'd backed him up in a firefight as promised. Bad guy or not, she was a valuable asset.

He wanted whatever had killed his men in that compound destroyed. He'd tell her anything she wanted if it made sure that happened. The hand on his dick? That was just an added bonus.

Voice hoarse, he responded, "Put your mouth where your hand is, and I'll tell you anything you want to hear."

She laughed and kissed wetly along his cheek until he turned his head to her tongue. The kiss drug out, the razor skimmed delicately over his jaw and finally retreated, and they both let go - watching each other with swirling expressions.

Softly, she urged, "Let me help you, Leon, and let go."

Of what? His seed? His soul? His intel? Hell - there wasn't much difference anymore.

But he told her all about the hookman in a shaky tone that spoke of intense pleasure. She liked it. It was the best interrogation she'd ever done.

"And that's when I went down- _fuck,_ Ada, stop. I mean it. I'll go otherwise."

"You'd rather it was me who went down?"

He couldn't stop the snort of laughter, "You kidding? Y.E.S."

She laughed too and set her razor down. The residual smears of blood tinged shaving cream spread to her as he turned his head and pressed their mouths together. Open eyed, they kissed almost delicately and he warned her, voice cracking slightly, "I'm gonna cum if you don't stop."

"So cum," She kissed him again, gently, "It'll feel good, I promise."

Oh, he was aware of that too. His hand caught the back of her neck, drawing a gasp of surprise and excitement from her. His hips tried to meet the pull of her on him and it caused pain to lance up from his belly. He hissed, Ada cautioned him, "Just take it."

And he did.

He took it.

She felt his body quicken. Ada slid over him. She straddled his body with her feet laid flat on either side of his hips. She brought the length of him to her to rub it over the lips of her pussy. She was, without a doubt, the biggest cock tease he'd ever met.

Curious, she cooed, "Should I put it in me? I think it would kill you."

He'd been mostly dead all day anyway. Maybe it was the best possible way to finish the job. He started to surge, the pain lanced and stole his breath instead, and Ada took his hands to slap them on the wall of the tub and hold them down.

Surprised, aroused, his breath caught again as she mewed, "No. You can't tear your stitches. Be still."

Shit.

He watched her face as she sank down on his body. Jesus. She was right about that. The hot water made them both insane or something. Her thighs, her hips, her planted feet and her body - she held his hands down and fucked him.

It was that simple.

It was smooth and almost gentle. No rough ride this time, a seduction. She didn't let him kiss her while she did it. She avoided his mouth and nipped his lips instead. She didn't even bother to pretend they weren't going to watch each other the whole time either.

He saw the pleasure. He felt her body suck him in. Tight and begging, the walls of her contracted to signal she was close. Her nails dug into his wrists, her back bowed, and she sucked his lower lip into her mouth with a mewl as she clinched and came.

He watched it on her, felt it in her, and knew the second he was there himself.

Feeling it, she hissed, "...not yet...beg for it and I'll let you claim me."

Bitch. He flashed his teeth and stuck his tongue in her mouth instead.

Stubborn. He was so fucking stubborn. She liked it. She didn't want to break him, she wanted to rule him. It was a fine line to walk.

Her feet pushed. His throbbing girth slid out of her and she spilled against his front still holding him down. She pinned him to the wall while he came, fighting the urge to hump through it, sending curls of cum into the swirling water around their hips.

Ada let go of his wrists. She'd carefully avoided his wounds while she'd pinned him. She slid away in the water while he trembled.

Voice shaky, he wondered, "What do I gotta do to earn you, Ada?"

Picking up the kimono, she kissed him upside down and said against his mouth, "...survive, Leon...and find out."

He watched her perfect ass head for the door. He knew by the time he got out of this tub, she'd be gone. There was no point in chasing her. It was like trying to catch a butterfly.

So he stayed in the water with the smell of her on him, and knew she'd find him again when he needed her.

He spent almost eight weeks in her safe haven. He was tempted, at one point, to pry and see what he could find on her, but he knew that was limited. Her man servant, or old friend, or medicine man was stoic but supportive.

He tended Leon's wounds. He spoke kindly. He was very, very tight lipped about Ada herself. He referred to her as  _kodomo_ which Leon was pretty sure meant child to some degree in Japanese. Was he Ada's father?

It seemed unlikely. Ada was Chinese...wasn't she? Again, her heritage was unclear. Her name was Chinese - Wong- but that was likely a pseudonym. He had no doubt Ada Wong wasn't her real name.

He had the option to leave her bedroom as he recovered. He didn't. He stayed. There was some kind of pleasure in being around her things. She had little left behind anyway, but what was there was telling.

A gun safe, locked with some code he couldn't fathom. A dresser filled with silky negligees and panties, stockings and tools of seduction. A closet that opened to show that Ada had a variety of ways she kept herself entertained.

There was a soft sided whip that hung there and some furred cuffs. Dangling from the hook where the cuffs were, a small note waited for him to open it. It had a red, red kiss and a single set of words: _If you ever want to really feel...tied up._

Amused, he wondered which person would wear them. The woman in red? Or her prey?

Leon considered the truth of that: was he? Was he her prey? It felt wrong somehow. It felt as if she'd simply tell him if he was meant to be her slave. In a way, he already knew she was using him.

Hell, he'd probably always known that. They were using each other when it suited. Maybe the perverse pleasure came from knowing whatever game they were playing, there were no concrete rules.

She was keeping him alive. Why? Eventually, he'd get to know the answer. Most likely he'd be eye ball deep in danger before he did, but she'd let him know. He watched the pretty play of light on the volcano while he thought of her with a small bottle of sake beside him.

She was the volcano, in her own way, she erupted when it suited her and left him behind covered in her ashes. He should get rid of her. He knew, in his guts, he could turn around, go home, and start something real with a woman who'd love and respect and appreciate him.

Hell, Claire did her level best to flirt with him openly and clearly whenever they were together. She was smart, beautiful, good in her bones, and brave. He could marry her, fill her belly with babies, and never look back.

His finger trailed over the cuffs that lay beside his thigh on the chair where he lounged.

And he just kept on staring at that quiet volcano.


	9. Chapter 9

**Part Two: The Bitch in the Red Dress**

* * *

_**The game changes.** _

_**The sword of justice is swift.** _

_**The taste of surrender begins to drown them both.** _

* * *

**Edinburgh. Scotland -2007**

* * *

The pound of her feet was lost in the bustle of the crowd. Heart racing, palms sweating, she ducked left under the over hang of the flamboyantly colored tent beside her and pushed into the bustling crowd. The festival might be the death of her as easily as the savior.

Ada slid among the bodies twirling and laughing and celebrating. She ducked and avoided drawing attention as fireworks lit the dark in bursts of color. The case tethered to the outside of her thigh beneath the bell skirt she wore seemed heavy somehow.

Her left hand clutched at the blood on her arm beneath the shiny red sleeve of her costume. She was a harlequin, as were many others in the bustling crowd, but she was probably the only one with a bullet in her skin. She was a limping a little on one side from her twisted ankle as well.

But she had the T-Avian sample in her possession.

Doctor Demarliere had somehow managed to mutate the The Abyss virus to make it aerial. What had corrupted those cruise liners was now in the skies. She'd seen the horror in the tanks in the lab. Birds perverted into demons. Bats made into monsters. Bees birthed out of nightmares filled with claws and teeth and death. She collected the sample...and set the timer on the lab to blow it sky high.

Her betrayal of Wesker over giving him the wrong plagas sample had burned her bridge to the 3rd Organization. As it stood, she was freelance. Cut loose from the ties to a great master, she was able to maneuver,almost undetected, in the underbelly of a world ripe with conspiracy. Eventually, she'd have to tie herself again to a cause at least for funding toward her end game - but for now, she was a spy operating in secret in possession of the only known sample of the next wave of bio-warfare.

Security had conducted a routine sweep an hour earlier than planned. They'd caught her exiting the lab. To lead them away and limit the fallout, she'd let them chase her over the long hallway in the church proper toward the festival. One of the trigger happy assholes had winged her in an attempt to validate his life as a rent-a-cop. The bullet had made an annoying stop over in her upper left biceps.

The bleeding was bad. She was partially afraid he'd nicked the brachial artery. Ada staggered through the crowd, slid around a tent selling fragrant teas laced with liquor, and slid to one knee in the dirt. She jerked up her sleeve, scrambled a hand toward her skirt and tore a piece of shiny cloth off it. Using her teeth, she bound the bleeding wound as tightly as possible. If it was arterial, the damage would lose her the goddamn arm if she didn't get the bullet out. Left untreated long enough, the wound would eventually kill her.

Gaining her feet, a little light headed, Ada shook it off and ran across the damp grass toward the far side of the church grounds. The laughter and revelry kept the eyes of all the people behind her. They watched the skies, they danced and played, they had no idea that a hundred yards away a madman was creating a virus capable of global extinction.

Jesus.

There was a shout as one of the security team spotted her. She limped and ran for the farthest end of the dark courtyard. She heard them running after her. Some idiot popped off another shot and it kicked up dirt in a muddy spray near her left foot. Fools. For all they knew, she was a scientist who'd simply ducked into that lab to look at data. If they'd have not turned aggressive the moment they'd spotted her, she'd have produced fake identification to clear her from any suspiscioun,. Instead, they'd immediately turned hostile. Trying to kill her was juvenile, amateur, and stupid.

The next shot hit the heavy column beside her as she ducked around it. It sprayed stone as Ada raced for the opening in the archway, lifted her grapple gun, and hit the trigger. She went up, the men shouted in surprise, and one fired wildly into the dark after her.

On the roof, Ada stumbled toward the west side, hit the trigger again, and zipped out over the parking lot. As she came down, her ankle gave out and spilled her to her knees. A bullet hit the quarter panel of the car she was beside and threw sparks.

If she hadn't have gone down, she'd have met her maker in that moment. Her bad ankle had saved her life. Rolling around the car, Ada hit the button on her detonator. Enough was enough, she was done playing hide and seek with rent-a-cops.

The explosion was so loud it was deafening. It met the noise of the fireworks and blended. While the security guards shouted and ran back toward the blazing fire, Ada slipped into her non-descript sedan and drove out to the road unnoticed. She left the world on fire behind her, and didn't look back.

* * *

**Aberdeen, Scotland - 2007**

* * *

The little stone house was no bigger than several hundred feet. It was on the waters edge and quaintly tucked back away from a road that rarely saw visitors. Nevertheless, she cleared it as she entered, stumbling forward toward the kitchen.

Her numb fingers knocked over things on the tiny counter before she gripped a bottle of whiskey and jerked the cork out of it with her teeth. She dumped the hearty liquid over her arm, hissed, and took a long swig on the bottle to fortify herself. Her left arm was tingling and going numb. She was running out of time.

Some lucky shot by a stupid fool would be the death of her.

Her fingers grabbed for the cutlery drawer. She dragged out a steak knife and a spoon. The door to her cottage shivered and Ada flipped the knife in her hand and launched as it opened.

The blade struck the door a half an inch from Leon's left eye.

He froze, brows arched, "...you missed."

Ada slumped against the counter, "...no I didn't. It was a warning."

He closed the door behind him, secured the bolt, and moved toward her, "Stupid to leave yourself exposed like that, Ada."

"...save me the fucking lecture, boy scout, and get over here."

He did, swiftly catching her under the armpits as she swayed forward. He lifted her and set her on the counter with a curt, "Lift your right hand and grab the cabinet."

Ada gave him a narrow look and he added, "Support yourself and let me do this. Unless you want me to sever the whole arm and be done with it."

Her hand curled over the cabinet pull and held. She jerked as he tore her sleeve up to the shoulder. Swaying, Ada watched the wall blur and turn pink and gold. Great, she was starting to black out.

There was a sharp pain that made her gasp as Leon widened the wound in her arm to be able to get his fingers into her and retract the bullet. She watched his profile and mused, slurring a little, "Last time you had your fingers in me, I felt like this too."

The bullet pinged into the sink as she dropped it and wrapped a heavy dish towel around the room to put pressure on the wound. "...how's that?"

Her lips slid against the side of his face. Leon turned his head enough that she spoke against his mouth, "...dizzy."

Apparently, an Ada weak and lethargic was a slightly more romantic soul. Amused, his eyes sparkled, "Oh, yeah? Feel good?"

She grinned a little, "I don't know...put your fingers in me again and let me compare."

His free hand skimmed up her leg, danced against the bare skin above the thigh high, and dipped under the edge of her panties. Honestly? Arousing her couldn't hurt. It would keep her awake when she might otherwise pass out.

So he obliged her and slid two fingers into her body. Her eyes flared. The dilated look in them went from lethargy to arousal. She moaned and opened her mouth to let him kiss her. Her eyes shut, his stayed open watching her as she spread her legs a little wider for him.

It was always a rare thing to see her this exposed. Wounded, weak, and willing - she didn't resist. He tested her by murmuring against her mouth, "Can I have you now, Ada? Have I earned you?"

She moaned and shook her head: no. Amused, he stopped fingering her when he felt her body start clenching. He didn't want her to cum, that would push her further toward shutting down. So he left her aroused and throbbing.

Her eyes snapped open and she hissed, "...who's the tease now?"

His teeth flashed wolfishly as he held pressure on her wounded arm, "I'm willing enough. You want me to fuck you? I couldn't last time, but I don't really get off on fucking girls that are half dead like you do."

Her legs hooked around his ass and jerked. He spilled against her as the hand holding the cabinet above her let go, shot out, and grabbed his throat. She snarled, "Half dead or not, I'm still better than you'll ever be."

In the semi-darkness, she could see he was strapped into a heavy tactical vest and fatigues. The thick leather coat he wore was left unzipped and allowed easy access to the huge knife strapped down his chest.

He watched her glance at his knife and back at his face. So he teased, "Wanna risk it? Grab for it, and we'll find out."

"You like when I grab for it, remember?" Although when she shifted, she couldn't feel that he was erect behind those pants he wore. So he was just playing with her for the sake of it. Bastard.

She tilted her head at him as he grinned in return, "...why are you here, Leon? You stalking me?"

Testing her, he pressed his mouth against hers. She returned it, a smooth touch of lips. The fishnet thigh highs she wore, the knee high boots, the sparkling costume in red, white, and black...she looked like a dirty perverts idea of a court jester or something. Tracking her hadn't been easy.

The first call had told him that there was an asset of his on the move in Kandahar. He'd hopped a plane to find out she'd already cleaned up any usable intel through the back channels of a black market sale of the missing T-Abyss virus. Thanks to the missing traitor Sherawat, there were samples in play that should have been destroyed after the outbreak aboard the Queen Zenobia.

Sadly, Sherawat had gone into the wind and not popped back up again. Finding her was like looking for a needle in a stack of needles. The only lead he'd had was a dealer named Matanbo out of Kandahar. The guy was willing to trade intel for a clean slate. He'd been first on Leon's asset list following what happened in Spain. Matanbo had a tendency to pop up there when he was most needed.

The vest Leon wore was the one he'd acquired from Mantanbo. It was the best quality tactical vest he'd ever owned. He'd traded it in Spain for am empty 9mm. A fair trade. It had saved his life more than once there.

Matanbo had proved to be a valuable asset. He sold to both sides, indiscriminately, and relayed intel when it suited him. Keeping him in play had netted them more one potential terrorist looking to acquire or sell weapons. Matanbo's intel alone had stopped the black market sale of two nukes stolen from a Russian depot in Moscow. They'd barely made it across the border into Syria before they'd been hijacked by the US government.

Crisis averted. That intel had made sure Matanbo received protection. The moment he popped up as having witnessed a sample of Abyss being sold, he'd relayed the information. Ada had scored the T-Abyss before he could get there.

What was worse? The rumors started about a man using another sample to create an aerial version. Matanbo had given him the name of three potential mules in Europe that might have made the sale.

By the time they found the right one who'd dealt to the Doctor at the University in Edinburgh, the damage was long done. The lab was in flames. The sample was gone...and then?

Ada Wong had made a single mistake.

Just one. Just a tiny one.

He'd found a smear of blood on a car in the parking lot. It was nothing. It might have been from anyone cutting their leg or something. But the drip pattern suggested it had fallen from above.

And the guards were jabbering on about how they'd "stopped an intruder". So Leon, curious, had asked, "You shoot them?"

Proud of himself, the fattest guard had vowed, "I did. I got her."

Her.

HER.

Spidey senses tingling, Leon had prodded, "Her? What did she look like?"

The skinny guard had replied, "Pretty. Tall. Hard to see her under the make up...but her wig slipped. I think she had black hair."

Without another word, Leon had scooped the blood on the car onto a swab and walked away from the police while they continued to question the guards. A quick test had been an easy answer. Ada.

Her blood didn't pop as Ada in the system. It came up Jane Doe, but it had her suspected terrorists acts on it and a slew of aliases for her.

After that, it was a matter of digging through cash rentals in the area. A generous pass of cash to the palm of a shopkeeper in town had told him a pretty Asian woman had rented his house on the shore for a week.

Without another word, he'd set out for Aberdeen. He wondered if he'd gotten here any later, if she'd have died on the floor.

Ada tried to kiss him again, pale and somehow still beautiful beneath all the glittery face paint, and he told her, "I need to stitch the wound, Ada, so we can bind it and let it heal. Do you have anything?"

Dizzy, she answered, "...bag. In the car - the bag in the car."

"Got it. Come here." He picked her up in his arms like she wasn't muscle and carried her over to lay her on the soft old couch in the small living area. She watched him lay a fire without any real effort, felt the heat off of it, and sighed as he disappeared outside.

She was almost asleep when the pain hit her broadside. She came awake shouting, but he'd tied her hands together and bound them to couch arm to keep her still. Surprised, Ada gasped, "...enjoying this, are you? Hurting me and holding me hostage?"

Leon rolled his eyes as he kept on stitching the inner layer of her skin closed, "Don't move, please. You'll make this harder than it needs to be."

Relenting, Ada whispered, "...is there any other way?"

The stabbing pain at least kept her alert as she watched the flicker of flames in the fireplace. It was toasty warm in the little cottage by the sea. She could hear the crush and slap of waves on the rocks beyond the thin windows. To his surprise, she spoke first into the silence, "...why are you here, Leon?"

He snapped off the end of his stitch and started binding the arm. She was watching him now with her arms above her head secured. With a shrug, he admitted, "We're always asking each other that, aren't we? I was tracking the same sample. You got there first."

Shit.

_Shit._

She jerked on her arms as he secured the bandage, "You bastard...where is it?"

His eyes were ice blue in the firelight. He managed to look innocent, but was guilty as hell. "What are you talking about?"

Ada jerked on her arms, "Don't you dare-I mean it, Leon. Where's my fucking sample?"

He said nothing. He stepped back from her. The sample case was gone from her thigh, damn him.  _DAMN HIM._  She tugged on her hands once more. "Don't be stupid, Leon."

He paused by the door, watching her bound on the couch. Ada gave him a filthy look and finally intoned, "Come on...we can work this out. Let me synthesize it, like before. That's fair, right?"

Fair. He wasn't sure she knew what fair was. Her breasts were making a platter of something he wanted to taste in that stupid slutty costume she was wearing. She was always torturing him and running away. He just wanted to fuck her, hard, and be done with it. Would it purge his system of her?

Or would it just make him even more of an addict? Fair. There was no fair when it came to Ada Wong.

He licked his teeth, jingled his keys in his pocket, and finally came back toward the couch. Relieved, Ada shifted until she was sitting up with her feet on the floor. "Thank you. Untie me. It'll just take a minute and then you can go."

She should tell him about Simmons. She should mention the side he was playing on was dirty, but would he believe her? She wasn't his most trusted adviser here. She was a woman who systemically tried to outwit, out run, and out play him.

He set the little case on the table. Further relieved, Ada responded, "...thank you for not making this difficult."

It was interesting to feel a surge of guilt at how simple he was being. No nefarious double cross here, just a guy who trusted her. It was the first time she felt a little bad for using him.

Leon slid his jacket off his arms and tugged the knife from his vest. He tossed the jacket on the couch to the side of her and brought the knife toward her. She angled her wrists up at him with a good amount of respect, "...you're humbling me a little here. Do you have anything to say?"

The knife touched her bonds. He studied her face. She felt a flutter of panic at the calm expression on him and she warned, "...don't."

His brow arched. He gruffed, "Don't what?"

"Don't be stupid. Cut me loose."

And he responded, "You're a little tied up at the moment, Ada. Sorry I didn't have any fur lined cuffs."

Shit.

She almost swallowed her tongue when he slid the point of the blade down her costume. It made scratching sound and had her mouth going dry. She didn't even have the words when the knife slid against the crinoline of her skirts. Shaking her head, she said, "...you're making a mistake."

Oh, he had no doubt about that. He'd made it years ago when he left her alive on that platform, but he wasn't making it now. The knife split the skirt with a sigh of giving fabric. The rough material fell out to the sides, cleaved in half. She felt her breath hitch as the knife slid under the soft black lace of her panties.

The look on his face made her pulse speed. She didn't even protest as he jerked the knife and the panties ripped down the middle. Her hips jerked. Her arms shivered.

Tilting his head, he asked, "What? No more warnings? Say no. Just one word - say no. I'll stop."

She had no doubt. He was just that guy. He wouldn't force her and he knew her well enough to know that this behavior would intrigue her. So, Ada held his gaze and answered, lips dry, "Your move, handsome. What now? How far you wanna take this to prove you've got me at your mercy?"

Leon grinned, "You think I'm playing?"

And she laughed, "I think we're always playing. What's your game? You wanna trade a good old fashioned fuck for the sample?"

He made her jump as he thrust the knife in his hand into the couch cushion beside her head. She felt a real flash of fear that worked like an aphrodisiac. It made her head spin more than the blood loss had. He could kill her.

He could fuck her.

He could leave her there exposed.

A powerful game.

The split panties clung to her thighs, black above black fish net stockings. Black above red boots. Black like a frame around the most vulnerable part of her. Exposed. She was, in this moment, completely exposed to him. She resisted the urge to close her legs. She left them parted for him to see her.

The tables turned sometimes in the most tempting of ways.

Softly, she taunted, "Take a picture, it'll last longer."

How far would she go to get the sample back? Those days of fucking for the job were long over, but this wasn't job. It was personal. He was damn sure making it clear that it was his turn to hold the power over her.

Was it that simple? Was he just looking to prove he could win against her?

Unable to read him, Ada finally said, "What do you want here, Leon? What are you doing?"

Without a word, he settled on the floor at her feet. She couldn't even find a single word of protest as he shifted her legs over his shoulders and put his mouth on her. If he'd stabbed her to death with the knife beside her, it wouldn't have been more shocking.

Ada gasped, she humped toward his face, and her thighs quivered. Maybe she'd known all along that's what he wanted. Maybe it was a clever ploy on his part to force some of her possession back on her.

His tongue struck as swift and talented as any other part of him. His hands slid up her belly, caught the ragged edges of the costume she wore and jerked, splitting it to the collar. She pulled against her bonds, watching his face between her legs as he sucked, slid, and savored her. He watched her body for signs, he listened to her noises, he angled his mouth to hum and help himself to her flavor.

The orgasm built as his hands skimmed up and palmed her breasts over the pretty bra she wore. When his eager mouth found her clit and started sucking, Ada felt her lips open a high pitched keen. He wasn't gentle. He pushed against her body with his mouth, licking, thrusting her legs higher on his shoulders, curling her body back as he feasted. Ada tried to buck against his face and she was too held down, too restricted. Instead, she let the pleasure cover her.

Why not? He was good at it. He used it like a weapon, and the slice of need left her gyrating against his eager mouth. Her body vibrated right at the edge of orgasm. She gasped, desperately, racing toward her own release.

When her thighs tightened and her body seized, his teeth bit gently at her swollen lips. The cry she released was loud against the crackling dark. It felt like he'd shot electric pleasure into her body and shocked her into a coma.

She came wetly against his face, cursing, rubbing her slick heat all over his sucking mouth. Dirty. Nothing pretty or sweet about it. He let her flop back against the couch. His arms forced her legs up obscenely as he rolled up her body with her still open before him. He jerked up her bra to smear the slickness of her all over her breasts as he helped himself to them and made her squirm and tremble. He wasn't easy there either. He nipped and sucked and suckled with enough teeth to make her start panting.

Her legs were draped uselessly over his elbows.

Ada watched him mound her breasts together and bury his face there, inhaling her. Voice hoarse, she whispered, "Cut me loose, Leon. Hurry."

He lifted his head, shrewdly watching her in the firelight with the taste of her still on his lips, and sucked her nipple into his mouth while he watched her face. Ada quivered as he let it slide out of his mouth and rasped, "Why?"

He leaned toward her. She arched her neck. They kissed and shared the flavor of her release between them. She watched him shiver with it and cooed, "So I can return the favor."

"Yeah?" He let her legs drop and frame his hips. His pants were cool and rough on her swollen lips. He was fully erect behind that zipper now, she thought with a tremble in her belly. Ready to go. He rubbed himself on her lewdly, "You want me to fuck you?"

Clever, clever boy. She felt her eyes twinkle with the thrill of the hunt. "No. I want you to put your dick in my mouth."

Amused, he leaned back. "Some other time."

Her legs landed on the couch. Her breasts trembled and bounced as she landed there.

Brows arched, Ada shivered on the couch, "You're denying me?" Her tone was somehow amused and insulted at the same time.

He laughed and tapped the box, "Not entirely. Maybe it's time you earned me instead. See ya round, gorgeous."

He tugged the knife from the pillow. She sat in utter surprise as he simply left her bound to the couch and walked out the door. He helped her, tongue fucked her, dumped enormous pleasure all over her...and just left?

After a moment of twisting, the bonds on her hands wouldn't give. She almost cursed him but her fingers touched something in the pillow above her bound wrists. She gingerly tugged the little scissors he'd left there. A single snip freed her hands.

She reached for the case on the table, smirking. What game was he playing now? Touching her, teasing her, tempting her...and running away. That was her game. She was fascinated to know she enjoyed the return of it.

Right up to the point that she opened the case and found it empty. The little note inside said:  _Sonja Nadahn. Your move_ _._ Sonja Nadahn was the regional head of the Pharmacom pharmaceutical company. They were heavily invested in the creation of vaccines and curatives for bioterror events. She'd come out openly against WilPharma during the scandal involving the T-Virus vaccine.

What was he saying? She was dirty?...or was he saying that's where the sample was going? What was this? A dare?

Aloud, she laughed, "...bastard. You fucking bastard."

Ada rolled to get her phone and found it missing. The flare of surprise and pleasure was sharp and layered in irritation. Beaten at her own fucking game because of a bullet in the arm.

Insulting.

He'd shown up, helped her, fucked her all up with pleasure, stolen her goodies, and lied to her face. Slippery little shit. He wasn't just a boy in Raccoon City anymore. She fingered the little note in the box and shook her head on a dry chuckle.

The student was swiftly becoming the teacher.


	10. Chapter 10

**Part Two: The Bitch in the Red Dress**

* * *

_**A heartless choice.** _

_**The soul divides.** _

**_There is no one without the other._ **

* * *

**Seattle, Washington -2008**

* * *

The curling smoke obscured the blue eyes that held hers across the table. The buxom blonde in her pencil skirt and silky blue camisole crossed and recrossed her legs as her red, red lips turned up in a smile. Her heavy breasts were topped by cleavage that kept drawing the eyes of the men in the bar around them.

Sonja Nadahn was beautiful in the way Marilyn Monroe had been once. She was pin-up girl pretty with big bowed lips and high cheekbones under piles of blonde curls. The stappy sandals on her delicate feet with the deconstructed business suit she mostly wore were Blahnik and a gorgeous satin cerulean.

The jacket for the suit was dangling on the chair behind her in a bar that reminded Ada of _Cheers._ It was dated, circulating in the eighties style of bold Tiffany lamps and long red felt pool tables. The crowd was mostly young twenties and mixed with urban professionals in their end of the day attire.

Ada wore an oriental style dress in white graced with peacocks done with a skillful hand and lotus flowers in her signature color. The black piping was curled around the keyhole opening at the high collar. The snug-fitting design left no room for the outline of the wrong lingerie and so she wore a tasteful g-sting, slinky thigh highs, and a silk bra in beautiful ivory and red beneath.

Sonja was swirling a long-nailed finger in her glass as she watched the other woman. "You just want me to...what? Give you access to my files? Allow you to look into my research and discover the link between the work of Dr. Chenkov and the movements of Albert Wesker?"

Ada smiled, her lips curling in the smoky air, "Hmm...not Albert, not exactly...the other Wesker. The one we thought was dead. Spencer would have told you about her. The woman. The one with the illness."

Sonja nodded, lifting her finger to her mouth to lick it clean. Ada arched a brow as the other woman wondered, "And what will you offer me? I can't imagine you have anything worth trading."

Ada pursed her lips, "I think we can work something out. I have a great many talents that I use with pleasure for my...friends."

A cosmopolitan arrived in the hands of a handsome waiter who smiled, winked, and told them, "From the man at the bar."

Ada turned her attention as Sonja made a hmmm sound, "Handsome. I wonder how he'd feel about being invited to our friendly meeting."

He was handsome, Ada would agree with that without question, he was also a slippery little shit about finding her. How? She'd been under the radar for quite some time since he'd cuckolded her in Scotland.

The pretty nearly sky blue of the shirt he wore looked nice with the steely gray vest and slacks. The boy was a man, it would seem, and gestured to her with his amber glass of whiskey in a salute.

Amused, Ada returned. "Hmmm...is he your type then?"

Sonja swirled her finger in the glass again, eyes bright, "Entirely. Are we friends now, Ms. Wong?"

Ada gave her a sultry smile as she rose, "We will be before the night is over..but my friends call me Ada." She leaned over until their noses brushed and almost purred, "Shall I see about adding your suitor there to our party?"

Sonja shrugged a delicate shoulder and glanced at Ada's mouth, "...perhaps threes a crowd?"

Ada felt her teeth flash, "Hmm...the more the merrier?"

The silence was tense with excitement for the blonde until she finally bobbed her head, "...I'll watch from here."

Ada turned on her ice pick heels and crossed the dimly lit bar. She felt her smile lift into a Cheshire Cat grin as Leon rolled around on the stool and she slipped right up against him as he parted his legs to let her. Her hand caught his tie, her other took his drink from his waiting fingers, and she sipped it while he watched her. Without a word, Ada pressed her mouth to his, waited, and shared the spicy liquid between them when he opened his mouth.

A show - for her target at the table - but not entirely. A tease for the man who'd left her fuming with nothing but a throbbing clit and a bandaged arm. As his tongue swept into her mouth, Ada felt his hand slide down her back, curve over her ass, and tug. She was pressed against him close enough that she knew he was happy she was there.

As they separated, breathing heavily, she murmured against his mouth, "...you clever thing...you knew she was a lesbian. You knew I was her type. You set me up to let me play with her and get what you wanted?"

His eyes were bluer than a winter sky but warmer than a sultry summer one as he simply curved his mouth up in a smirk. Impressed, Ada looped his tie around her fist and licked his mouth, adding, "Play along and we both win."

His hand hooked at her ass, curled in enough to make it possessive, and tugged her tighter to him. It was aggressive enough it made her gasp and her nipples press against his chest. They eyed each other in amused arousal until he finally spoke into her mouth, "...deal."

They kissed again, slick and hungry. Nobody took their eyes off the other until Ada caught his bottom lip with her teeth, tugged it gently, and peeled herself away from the front of his body. "Follow. Behave."

She took his hand, turned, and hold it over her shoulder as she led him toward the other woman. Sonja, impressive breasts bouncing, rose from the chair and paid the check with a dump of bills on the table. They didn't speak as they followed her from the bar and joined her in the back of her town car.

The second the door was closed, she hiked up her skirt, bared her perfect thighs and the edge of lacy black panties, and slid right over Leon's waiting lap.

Ada, amused, leaned back in the seat across from them in the dark murky light of the passing cars beyond the tinted windows and watched the one blonde attempt to devour the other. He was good, she'd give him that, he played the game in a way she hadn't expected. He tucked his hands under Sonja's skirt and palmed her ass, he rolled her hips atop him and made her moan and tremble. He didn't have to fake that. He was just that good at what he was doing.

Ada enjoyed the show of it. She crossed her legs and lit one of the cigarettes she found on the minibar in the long cab, watching them paw and play in the twilight interior. Sonja went for his tie and spread open his vest. She pawed his chest over the pretty shirt he wore.

As she moved her mouth to suck at his neck, his gaze went right over her shoulder and latched onto Ada where she watched them like a beautiful voyeur in a sultry story. His hands shifted enough around the thighs of the woman licking all over his neck that his fingers could slide in between and skim the heat of her over those black panties. She moaned, he jerked her into a dry hump that made the woman atop him quiver, and Ada felt her lips lift in a wry half-smile.

Did he think to make her jealous?

She studied him as he avoided the kiss of the other woman skillfully, tilting her head back instead to kiss down her neck. His eyes _never_ left Ada where she perched and watched them.

Did he think to make her excited?

She rolled her bottom lip between her teeth. It was a curious thing that she was a little of both. When she winked at him and blew a curl of smoke into the air, Leon buried his face against the bounty of all that natural beauty that was Sonja's breasts and made her writhe.

He was better than she'd thought. Ada tuned her ears as his fingers dipped further under that skirt. The blonde atop him made a small high pitched cry. She rolled her hips and whimpered, his right hand tucked completely and the soft seduction of the car was split with Sonja's whine of release.

He'd gotten the woman to cum atop him with a finger fucking and teeth against her tits. It wasn't surprising. He'd done the same to her in Scotland. He was a man who understood his body and the body of a woman. He'd spent enough time between the thighs of the softer sex to anticipate their needs.

He might be a bit of a pain in the ass sometimes, but he was good in bed. There was no denying the simple joys of the flesh when the game became something that needed it. As Sonja collapsed around him, Leon watched Ada over her shoulder.

Ada saluted him with her glass of champagne and had his teeth flashing in a grin.

How long could they play this game without someone becoming the victor?

She was fairly sure they were about to find out.

* * *

Sonja was sound asleep on her belly beneath a swirl of white silk sheets. The sedative Ada had put into her vodka had finally kicked in. The woman was a wanton creature of the first water.

Pleasing her had taken some amount of effort before she'd finally taken a drink. It wasn't that Ada minded letting a woman between her thighs. It wasn't the first time and it wouldn't be the last.

Sonja had been eager enough to eat her out and let Leon watch them. She'd been a vigorous lover so there was no complaint there and Ada had certainly been happy enough to lie on the expensive sheets and watch Leon watch her as she done in the car. He'd been a good cuck, showing enthusiasm and interest when Sonja would roll Ada to her belly and lift her ass to go at her from behind.

Lips and teeth, tender or passionate, the blonde woman might be a traitor to her own people but she was a determined lover. On all fours, Ada had submitted to the mouth and the hands-on her hips and the tongue inside her. It had once been her ticket out of the slums that had started her journey to the woman she'd become.

Ada Wong was not the girl she'd been in those filthy rooms. Ada Wong was no one's whore. What she did now, she did of her own volition. She did it with full knowledge of what came after it was over. She allowed the pleasure of it to mix with the joy of knowing that on the computer in the office across the hall was all the information she'd need on the missing Wesker.

As she rose from the bed, Leon emerged from the office. The low lights from the bathroom across the room cast her body in shadow and yellow light. She wore those thigh highs and the garter. Sonja had taken the panties but demanded she leave the rest.

He wondered if he'd ever really forget the sight of one beautiful woman between the frame of Ada's satin clad legs. Sometimes, the game they played was a double-edged sword. He'd felt both searing desire and crippling jealousy sitting in that chair.

He wasn't sure which one pissed him off more.

Ada cast a look over her shoulder at him, "She's out. She'll be down until long after dawn. She'll wake up knowing she had the best night of her life. What did you find?"

He held up two memory sticks and poked one in his pocket. The other he held out to her. She cocked her head as she turned toward him. Her belly was sleekly muscled and her breasts high and proud. Part of him hated her, part of him craved her like a drink after a long day.

She waited and finally asked, voice ripe with amusement, "You want me to come fetch?"

Out until morning. The woman who'd had so much information on that computer of hers that he'd uploaded most of it to a secure server at Langley before he'd spoofed the rest to the drives he'd made for himself and Ada. He gave USSTRATCOM what they needed to shut down Nadahn. He'd taken the information she had on Wesker Ada had wanted and cloned it to both his drive and hers.

So, it would seem, they'd be in a race against each other for who could find the woman first.

Once the sun came up, they'd be on opposite sides of the line again that seemed blurred and broken in the dark bedroom. The bar, the car, the high rise apartment where she'd watched him while another woman pleasured her. The look on her face while he'd made that big breasted bitch atop him tighten around his fingers and moan like a whore...he didn't know who he was when Ada was near him.

He just knew it was the only time he ever forgot about the line between right and wrong. He didn't just cross it when she was near him, he obliterated it and bathed in the joy of being bad. Damn her. The hold she had on him was easily severed.

All he had to do was just pull the gun from his holster and finish her off. His hand shifted to it. Her eyes widened as her lips lifted. "...really?"

Gruffly, he told her, "...I should turn you over, Ada. Give me a reason not to."

He watched the challenge of it flicker over her face. Her nipples were peaked above that shadowed belly of hers. She didn't demurely cover herself. She didn't bother. Somehow? Even mostly naked in nothing but that garter and hose and heels, she was still a lady.

The thrill of her words made them both aware of where they stood, "We both knew if you'd wanted that, you'd have done it in Raccoon City. So, what do you want, Leon? You've got what you wanted out of me, you have what you came for...why are you still here? Go back to your master."

"...and you'll go back to yours?"

The shiver of anger was fast and gone; a shadow of a feeling. "I don't answer to anyone. One of these days, you're gonna figure that out. You could have fucked Nadahn yourself, we both know that. You played me like a fiddle to get me to do it for you...why?"

His response made her teeth flash in an answering laugh, "Why not? Games are fun."

"Aren't they? Wanna play another one?"

No. He should turn her over to the people in the right places to put her in a prison cell somewhere. He knew it. He knew she'd play games with his goddamn corpse if he didn't.

But his mouth said, "...why the hell not?"

She put a handout and her fingers passed over the drive that he held aloft to her. His left palm caught her wrist and tugged. She tumbled against him, the drive bumped soundlessly in the carpet on the floor, and her nails curled up his back.

Leon fisted her hair, his fingers curling along the back of her skull as his right hand slid over her ass to bring her into him. She opened to his tongue. She allowed it. Her breasts pressed into his chest as the kiss went on and on and on with delving tongues and diving heads and desperate breaths.

Desperate hands scooped down the backs of her thighs and lifted. She came up, bouncing, as her legs looped around his waist. He angled her against the wall as Ada's grasping digits went down, down, down and jerked at his fly. His mouth ate along her jaw and down across her collarbone. He sucked one of her breasts into his mouth as she thrust a hand iside his pants to pull him from his boxers.

Stupid.

He was on a mission. He had a communicator in his ear muted from his handler. Ingrid Hunnigan was patiently waiting for a status update. He had what he'd come for. He'd played the game and gotten the intel. His job here was done.

The target for the takedown was sleeping eight feet away in a drug-induced slumber. This was probably the dumbest thing he'd ever done. He should cuff the woman in his arms and take her in.

But it was her that took him in.

The slick eager walls of her cunt constricted the second his hips surged and buried his dick in her. Ada made a sound like a cat purring and her blood-red nails cupped around his jaw to turn his face from her throat to her mouth. They kissed, open-eyed and wet. His hips drew back and claimed her again so hard it made her back slap against the wall as her body accepted him. He watched her eyes flare and her mouth open in surrender.

His mind said - _she's faking._ His body said - _who gives a shit?_

He didn't.

He was helpless against it. He was done fighting it. He just let her hold his goddamn face and force him to look at her as he pulled back to the tip and tried to break her pelvis when he shoved back in. She liked it. The harder, the better; the faster, the tighter she became around him. His hands bracketed beside her head in a push-up, his hips pistoned into her while her legs clenched around his sides and the damning drench of her pussy simply stole the last of his resolve.

Angry, desperate, he growled, "... _fuck_ it."

Her laughter was high and musical. She gripped his jaw and curled her index fingers over the rapidly pounding pulse just below the delicate curve where it met his ear and her thumbs against his Adam's apple. His hips punished them both. He fucked her so hard that the sounds she made were animal in nature.

The moment she jerked on his hair to kiss him, he threw her onto the bed on her back. Sonja stirred and murmured above her. Ada bounced and came down as he grabbed her hands in one of his, slapped them over her head, and tried to fuck her through the bed beneath her. Those silk-clad thighs opened wide, her left heel cut a jagged path over the expensive sheets, and her groin shoved up against his to urge him on.

Leon's free hand latched at her throat to squeeze. She gasped, she bowed, she commanded, "Now!"

His hand seized hard at her delicate neck, she let out a gasp of something like fear, and he pinned her goddamn arms to the bed, her back and ass to him, and soaked the sucking center of her hungry cunt with the most painful orgasm of his life. His hand lifted her by the throat to slam her into the mattress with it. He grunted and he groaned, he cursed and his balls tightened until he was half-convinced he'd feel his own cum spill around the thrusting length of his squirting cock as he claimed her.

Ada couldn't make a sound as her face pinked with his assault. His hand let go and she drew in a sharp, high, desperate breath as Leon released her hands, grabbed her hips, and tilted her against him to fuck her through his release. Ada's hands scrambled, they grabbed his tie one and slapped his face with the other. When she mewled, he ground into her body so hard it had to hurt her.

His voice dragged as Sonja snored a foot from Ada's bouncing breasts, "Go, goddamn you! _Go!"_

Jesus.

Her body reacted. It liked him angry and hard and hurting her. She gasped, she clutched madly at him and milked his plowing member with her panicked pleasure. Ada slid a hand down her belly, twisted her fingers twice against her clit, and cursed him, "... _bastard!"_

Leon hammered her while she came. Hard. She came so rough it squeezed him like a fist made of sticky, spongey, weeping steel.

She resisted it, his left hand caught her face to turn it away from him, and he pulled out and shoved into her again until he was finally, finally, finally finished.

Sonja murmured in her sleep. Leon grabbed Ada's face and kissed her. Sweaty, slick and panting, they both engaged in a battle of tongues that made her whimper. When he let her go, she flopped back on the bed.

He thrust once more into her sopping signs of surrender and made her slap his face again.

Leon grunted and pushed up from her body. It released him with a regretful sucking sound. Her belly contracted and her body clenched at the rough goodbye. Before he reached to button himself back up, his hand lowered and smeared the evidence of his victory over her all-around perfectly used mound. Her smile was wolfish as he curled his fingers tucked his cum into her body like he'd brand her.

Her eyes were bright, "...was it good for you?"

Her voice was breathy.

Angry, he returned, "I've had better."

Oh.

Oh oh oh.

Her amusement was rich and loud. She snapped her thighs around his hand that was playing in her folds and slipping against their mated juices. "...liar."

Leon's other hand grabbed the back of her neck. He jerked her up to his mouth and Ada turned her head to force his lips down the side of her neck instead. Annoyed, he told her, "...I made you mine."

She laughed, delighted, "No. You fool. I'm not your girlfriend. I'm not your wife. I'm no man's possession. A fuck is a fuck is a fuck is a fuck. The woman behind me? She fucked me too. Or did you forget?"

Ada watched the thunder of frustration as he let go of her. She curled on her side like a cat, watching him zip up his pants. She liked him so unpredictable. It made him even more interesting than she'd ever expected.

Her chin propped on her hand as she observed him tossing his hair back with such a scowl it made her mouth lift in a smile, "...don't be angry, Leon. It's so terribly trite. Do you love me?"

He froze. He gave her a killer glare and she laughed, softly, "Do you? You don't even know me. I'm not yours. You're not mine...unless you want to be." She purred it now, crawling on all fours to the edge of the bed to give him a sultry look, "If you're mine, stay. Stay here and serve me. I promise I'll use you...so much better than those fools who own you."

He picked up the drive from the floor and fisted it, giving her a look that should have vaporized her on the spot. Ada felt her mouth turn into a grin, "...you're angry with me...it suits you. Maybe you should ask yourself why. Is it me you're angry with...or you?"

The flash drive in his hand plopped on the bed beside her left hand. Ada stayed on all fours, taunting him, tempting him while the woman they'd screwed together slept peacefully behind her.

He didn't know who he was anymore when she was around him.

He was starting to wonder if he'd ever again be the boy in Raccoon City who'd just wanted to save the world.

Ada crooked a finger at him, her breasts shadowed and beautiful and begging for his hands and mouth to taste her again. She let him see just enough of her delicious ass to notice the wet trail of his seed sliding down her toned thighs toward those torturing stalkings. And she purred, "Stay...and I'll make you mine."

He shook his head. He backed up two steps and she laughed playfully, calling, "...hmm...coward."

With some kind of guilt, he turned toward the light beyond the door of that den of desire where he'd finally laid claim to the thing he wanted. He'd wanted to purge her from him, to free himself of her power over him by taking her and leaving her dripping with him, but even there she'd defeated him.

Because all he wanted to do was see how good it would feel to be hers.

And he hated them both for it.


	11. Chapter 11

****

 

* * *

 

**Part Two: The Bitch in the Red Dress**

* * *

_**A woman without a key.** _

_**A key without a lock.** _

**_Two bound souls looking for freedom._ **

* * *

**Helsinki -2009**

* * *

The echo of gunfire chased her into the cold room. Ada slid against the wall as she slapped the door shut and wedged it with the desk beside her. She very nearly swallowed her heart at the voice that joined her in the shimmering dark.

"...well...you're fucked."

She spun, the gun came up and was caught in a fist and jerked from her grip, and a hand grabbed her throat and thrust her against the wall while her own weapon was used to push against her ribs. "Ease down. It's me."

Me.

Me?

Her eyes tried to make sense of his face in the dark as she wondered, "...Leon!?"

"...seemingly. You expecting someone else?"

Her hand on the taser secured to her thigh slid away as she whispered, "What the hell are you doing here?"

His snort was quiet as the men outside rushed around trying to find the intruder. "...I imagine the same thing you were, but with less of a mess. What the hell did you do?"

Ada hissed, "Someone triggered the silent alarm."

His breath tickled her ear as he leaned in close, "Yeah? Not as good as you think you are then."

Ada curled her hands into his vest and growled, "It wasn't  _me,_ you jackass. You come alone?"

"Lately, doll face, I  _always_ come alone."

Ada rolled her eyes and returned, "Somebody screwed me."

The second she said it, she wished she could get it back as he answered, "...well...that  _actually was_  me."

She shoved him away as the noises died beyond the door. "Focus on what matters here. Who knew? Besides us...who knew?"

The shared data between them over their naughty night together had obviously gathered them both at this little obscure lab to grab onto a sample of the prototype mutagen that the missing Alex Wesker was rumored to have stored here.

So far, it was just a lot of danger and not a lot of reward.

They studied each other as their eyes adjusted in the dark. She was in black and outfitted with a vest and the occasional flicker of knives. No red dress, no seduction, no games - this was a woman on a mission. Leon shifted in his own tactical gear and returned, "No one. I'm here on my own time - furlough- and off the grid."

She sighed, "Damnit...me too. Ok.." The noises picked up again as the men kept shouting about intruders, "We need to get out of here. Let's pool our knowledge and make it count."

Nodding, Leon mused, "I scaled the western wall and came in through the courtyard."

Ada, impressed, told him, "I submerged and entered through the lower level water reservoir."

There was a quiet moment before he suggested, "So what if we go right out the front door?"

Surprised, she turned her head over her shoulder as he clarified, "They're gonna be hitting all the major hubs of escape right? They'll leave one guy guarding the main gate at most. Hell, they might leave it totally unstaffed checking the egress points that seem more obscure. If I can set off some false alarms..."

Ada finished, impressed, "We can walk right out without a battle."

"Exactly." He opened the communicator on his watch and filled the dark with silver light, "I'm gonna hack into the main security and trigger some alarms in the compound."

Ada moved to the desktop on the darkened console, "Give me five minutes and I can do it faster."

"Yeah?"

"...yep."

Leon shrugged, "Game on."

She started typing furiously, he tapped his watch and stuck something in his ear. Ada saw him slide on glasses and lift his hands. With awe, she speculated, "...you wily bastard. You have access to the VR being beta tested at the Pentagon?"

"Nope. Just playing Tetris." He quipped and the gloves on his hands lit up at the finger tips as he visually navigated the security in the lab.

Amused, Ada keyed in the first alarm. The world flashed red and white, the footsteps rushed past the door, and Leon told her, "Second and third ones should go off in a waterfall effect in about eight minutes."

She told him, "Release the locks on the main hallway."

"Already done." His hands lowered.

Ada watched him pocket the glasses and mused, "...you know I'm going to be taking that off you before we're done right?"

Leon smirked, "Give it your best shot, sweetheart."

He eased open their escape door and gestured her out with his head. They moved quickly and efficiently, slipping through shadows, and avoiding detection as they crossed the long corridor toward the main gate. When two men hurried by with guns, Ada tucked him into a corner with her and covered his mouth with her hand.

Eyes twinkling, he waited until she lifted her hand and wondered, "You think I was gonna shriek in fear and ruin our cover?"

Her mouth twitched as she stepped away from him and hurried toward the expansive lobby. They cleared as they ran, covering balcony and main level in sweeping turns. Ada pushed open the heavy doors and Leon joined her in the courtyard. Lights flashed and swirled around them. The guard towers had their spotlights aimed over on the eastern side as more alarms began to blare.

They hurried toward the main road and one landed on them. There was a shout, Ada grabbed his vest from behind and warned him, "Grab on."

"What?"

"Grab me."

One of his hands grabbed her vest, the other grabbed her ass, and she hit the trigger on the grapple gun as heavy artillery fire ripped up dirt and grass at their feet. They were jerked up and away, flipped over the barbed wire fence abroad, and landed in the thick marsh on the other side. They split, started running, and Ada called softly, "...I said grab me...not grab my ass."

"...I'm a man of opportunity, doll face. It's what I do."

She laughed. He snorted. And they hit the heavy line of forest and kept on going.

After about an hour of picking through the forest, Ada let her guard down enough to tell him, "I think someone might be playing us both."

He stepped up beside her, lifting an arm to bat away low hanging branches so they could slip through a narrow passage of heavily gnarled trees, "How so?"

"The mutagen should have been there...the only way it wasn't was if someone knew we were looking and led us on a wild goose chase."

"Hmm."

Ada sighed as she lifted her phone to key in some data, "...I'm not usually wrong. The damn thing should have been there."

After a long moment, Leon finally admitted, "...it was."

Her gaze shifted from her phone to his face. His smile lifted and he told her, "...I have it. I got to it before you did."

She lowered her phone to stare at him, "...you what?"

"I got it. I have the mutagen. You want it?"

Her lips pursed, "...what do you want?"

He shrugged and started through the trees again, "I've had it. There's nothing you can bargain with now, sweetheart. Been there; done...well... _that."_

Ada rolled her eyes. She started after him, musing, "I can have a vaccine produced before anyone in Washington...you know that. It's not personal, Leon, it's business. Let me help you...and you help me. Whatever you think, it doesn't have to be more than that."

He paused, he turned back to face her, and remarked, "You really believe that?"

She shrugged, "You made it personal, remember? You grabbed me. You threw me down. You had your way with me. You made it personal. Now you want to...what? Punish me because I didn't feel the same way about it? You wanna punish me, when you know I can get an inoculation in the works so much faster than you can, because I don't love you back?"

The humor on him shivered, "...nobody said a damn thing about love, Ada. I think you're overestimating yourself."

She flicked her gaze over him, "Am I? That's what you want right? You want me to love you? You want to be my lover?"

She took a single step forward, "You can be my lover, Leon. I enjoy you. I think we have chemistry. We can do that...but I think you want something I can't give you. I think you want love in a way that wouldn't suit either of us at the end of the day. Don't make a stupid decision because your feelings are hurt."

He started to say something snarky and angry and the red dot on her forehead had him springing forward instead. She tried to back off and he tackled her, taking them both down as the tree where she'd been exploded in a scatter shot of bark and boom. Ada clutched him, he rolled left with her against him, and threw them both into the cover of the filthy swamp.

They sunk into the murky water as more bullets lit the top of the mossy mess above them. When he handed her a heavy reed, Ada used it like a snorkel and poked it above the water as they kept submerged and started moving. They sounds of pursuit were lost more and more as they went. They both felt the movement of things in the swamp with them and kept pushing on.

Ada was really hoping there wasn't an alligator waiting to eat her face off on the other side. As she emerged from the filthy dregs of stagnant stench, Leon remarked from the shore, "Sorry about the hard tackle back there."

She turned her head to look at him as she brushed moss and moldy water off her face. "...don't be. I'd be either dead or in their custody if you hadn't...so..." The quiet stretched out before he looked down as he cleaned the filth off his weapon.

And she added, softly, "...thank you."

Surprised, his gaze flicked up to her face and she was already looking away into the dying day. "I don't have a clue how close they are. I think we need to make a break for the safe house I have in place beyond the pines over there."

Curious, Leon narrowed his gaze, "What kind of safehouse is it?"

She smirked, "The kind where you don't die and nobody comes looking for you. What do you say?"

"What the hell, right?...lead the way."

Her mouth twitched, "I thought that wasn't your style."

He laughed and fell into step beside her, "I don't think I know what the hell my style is anymore with you, Ada."

She couldn't stop the wink as she hurried forward into the encroaching darkness. He blew out a heavy breath and followed her righteous ass right into the unknown. God knew, he couldn't be sure she wasn't leading him to a slaughter.

He was just trusting she'd keep him alive long enough, at least, to get the damn mutagen he had on him.

* * *

The place beyond the pines was the damnedest thing he'd ever seen.

It was just beyond them, it was  _in_ them. She had a safe house in the trunk of a pine tree. Like something out of a fantasy movie, Leon watched her touch a notch on the big tree and step through the opening that appeared.

He followed her down a narrow set of stairs as the last of the lingering sunset was swallowed by the door that swung shut in their wake. The dark curled around them until she touched something on the wall and filled the eerie black with flickering bulbs. The small chamber at the base of the steps was somehow classy despite behind austere.

The two bulbs that dangled were battery operator, but the computer sitting on a roughed out box turned into a desk was powered by some kind of power cell that was run into the ground beneath them. The bed was full size, on a pallet laid on the ground to hold the mattress, and covered in a set of black sheets draped over by a blood red comforter.

A tiny shelf graced the floor by the bed and had a handful of books set on it. Some were dusty and untouched, but the one with a dog earred cover drew his attention. As Ada started typing on her computer, he picked up the book and felt his mouth turn up into a smirk.

"...Annalise knew it was wrong. It had to be...it had to be wrong to want him the way she did. She was a woman with more sense than to crave the son of a simple man like the butcher...and yet his smile haunted her as his hands did, skimming down her long white legs to the c-"

Ada gave him a murderous look over her shoulder and had him grinning. "Laugh it up, Kennedy. You find my taste in literature amusing?"

"...you have  _War and Peace_  over there and an entire set of books about hacking various systems...and this. This trashy romance novel. Those look basically unread, but this one? This bad boy has seen some lovin."

When she ignored him and went back to typing, he mused, needling her, "...did she end up with the butcher's boy in the end? He clearly knows how to handle his meat."

Ada rolled her eyes and turned back to face him, "I have an evacuation in play for six a.m. Help yourself to the book and find out, we've got plenty of time."

As she turned toward the small shelf beside her computer stocked with bottled water, Leon teased, "...I'll just skip to the good stuff. Does she learn how to handle his meat too? Or what?"

Ada said nothing as Leon leaned against the wall with the book lifted for his amusement. He whistled low and told her, "...apparently the answer is yes. Annalise seems to understand all about his sausage...does he learn about her rump roast?"

She sipped water and arched a brow, "...you're having way too much fun with this."

"...I'm mostly just curious if she has roast beef curtains..."

Ada heaved a heavy sigh, "Give me the mutagen, Leon, and make life easy here."

He shrugged a shoulder and kept on reading, "We back to this? I'm not interested in dealing. I'm actually starting to think I might do better handing you in."

She set down the water. He lowered the book when she was silent. They stared at each other until she finally spoke into the silence, "...give it your best shot. You're in  _my_ safehouse. It's  _my_ team coming to extract me. I can see you to safety, and you can make it worth my while, or you can take your chances up there on your own. Either way? I'm not offering you a deal, I'm offering you a chance to come out of this with your life."

His brows arched up as his mouth twitched, "You threatening me?"

She tilted her head, "Do I need to? You're being petty. You're acting like a rejected prom date. We both know I could take the damn mutagen from you if I wanted."

Annoyed now, he tossed the book on the bed. "Yeah? Let's see what ya got, princess. Nothing but time here, right? Come and get it."

They stared at each other. They both vibrated with energy. Finally, she warned him, "...don't be stupid here, Leon. You have a chance to keep things like they've always been between us."

Surprised, his teeth flashed, "How's that, Ada? On  _your_ terms? I'm bored playing it your way. You want what I got, sweetheart, you're gonna have to take it from me."

She tossed the water bottle before he even finished taunting her. It smacked into his forehead as he met her halfway. She swept for his feet, he crossed shins with her and grabbed her throat, she over rotated and dropped her arm to free herself from his grip and he hooked an ankle behind hers to spill her backward into the wall.

Ada hit and slid down it as he grabbed for her throat again, she pummeled toward his groin, and his other hand snatched her wrist to sling her forward before she struck. Ada rolled and whipped around to throw her leg out to take his, and forced Leon to stagger as she grabbed for his belt, rolled to her back, stuck her feet in his belly, and slung him up and over.

He hit on his back on the mattress and she rolled into a hand stand, pushed herself into a cartwheel, and came down atop him on the bed.

It was a half hearted battle at best.

They both knew it.

As she landed, she grabbed for the knife at his vest and jerked. It came free, he caught her wrist as she angled it at his throat, and he wedged his pistol into her ribs as they faced each other from inches away. Breathing heavily, he urged, "...go ahead. Can you cut me before I blow apart your sternum?"

Ada panted softly above him and finally answered, "...why didn't you let them finish me off out there in the swamp?"

They continued to mesmerize each other in a tense silence until he uttered, "...I don't fucking know. I  _hate_ that I don't fucking know."

She kept on watching his eyes as he added, "...wanna tell me why you don't just kill me to get what you want? What's the games, Ada? What's the point? You let me fuck you, you let me touch you, you run away and taunt me...why? Why not just ask me for help? What good does it to play with me?"

She wanted to give him something for saving her life. She wanted to give him some kind of reward. She couldn't give him the love she knew he wanted. She wasn't built that way, but here and now? She could give him the truth.

"...I like games. I'm good at them. I'm even better with men. Men are simple, they're mostly controlled by their dicks, and their dicks rule the world. To operate in a world of dicks, I become the thing they want to fuck. I knew you wanted to fuck me, I knew letting you just might work to make you chase me even harder...tell me I was wrong."

Their gazes clashed for so long that she was pretty sure he wasn't going to answer her, and then? "...you don't have to play games with me anymore. You want to work together...let's work together...but no more goddamn games."

Quietly, she let their lips brush as she returned, "...you like the games."

He shook his head and she added, "...you wouldn't play them if you didn't. What do you want from me, Leon? Right now, in this moment, what do you want?"

Their noses brushed. Their eyes held. He didn't look away and she  _loved_ that he didn't. He might have been a puppy once, but he was a wolf now. He wasn't just chasing her...he was hunting her. It made her blood boil with excitement.

After a handful of seconds, she urged, "...you want me gone? Say the word, tell me you're done, and we'll deal with each other like two men brokering a trade. Is that what you want? You want to stop playing games?"

Her nose brushed as her mouth did, over his like butterfly wings with each word she whispered, "Just...say...stop."

To her infinite surprise, his voice came low and grumbling, "...stop."

If he'd slapped her, she wouldn't have been more surprised. Ada drew the knife away from his throat and sat up. She flipped the blade over and offered it back to him, hilt first. He kept the pistol on her as she rose up, straddling his lap, but he took the knife back.

Without an edge of anything, she informed him, "Fair enough."

He watched her slip left and roll to her feet beside the bed. She moved and sat down in the chair beside the computer to face him. He watched her on his side on the bed until she finally told him, "What do you want?"

His brows arched and she added, "For the mutagen, for the VR capabilities, what do you want?"

Leon scoffed and rolled to his back to look at the ceiling, "...why not? Let's bargain. What do ya got?"

Without missing a beat, Ada told him, "...Jill Valentine is alive. Albert Wesker is using her to harvest antibodies for the T-Virus and create a devastating viral agent capable of complete global annihilation at an undisclosed location near Mauti Kifo, Africa. My guess would be Kijuju - since it's in the midst of a political coup and looking for a new dictator. A perfect opportunity to use it as a stomping ground for a near fatal attempt at genocide."

Leon stared at her on his back like she'd grown a second head. Ada held his gaze equally and finished, "If he succeeds, everything I've done is for nothing. I need him stopped. I need the intel leaked to the BSAA in a way that they know it didn't come from me. They need to track a shitty arms dealer by the name of Ricardo Irving. He's the mouth piece between Wesker and the dregs of what's left of Umbrella. He's working in conjunction with a black market syndicate known as Eiderdown. Their main line of operation is out of Klagenfurt, but I can't find the base of operations. I'm hoping you can help me there."

Leon kept on staring at her until she prompted, "...you're familiar with Austria?"

He finally nodded and remarked, "I am. We've been watching Eiderdown for some time actually. I have a contact on the ground there undercover."

Ada bobbed her head, "Good. Let me copy the mutagen and I'll show you how to get in touch with Irving and fake a buy. I'll take the copy and offer it for sale via a dumbie corporation to weed out the higher ups on Eiderdown. Your asset can use the opportunity to prove themselves by brokering the sale and get themselves inside the higher circles."

They held eyes until he eventually retorted, "...deal."

Ada nodded and rolled around in the chair to start typing on her computer as he watched her. After a few minutes, Leon remarked, "...you wanna come on board as a paid asset for me?"

She laughed, shook her head, and kept on typing.

Who was he kidding?

But at least he'd asked.

Into the quiet, he surprised her with a single statement, "...thank you, Ada."

She rolled her head over her shoulder. He held her gaze. They both kept right on staring until her computer beeped and she turned back to it, murmuring, "...you're welcome. Try to get some sleep. I'll wake you when the evacuation team arrives."

The absence of sound shimmered around them. Leon stared at the ceiling while she clicked on keys. She could have kept on playing, she had to know he'd keep on chasing, he just...he wasn't interested in a world where she wasn't. He didn't have to  _like_ the truth of that to admit it to himself.

She was bad for him. He knew it. His fucking bones knew she wasn't a good person.

But was she really a bad one?

He had no way of knowing the answer to that. What he did know was that somehow, she managed to help him circumvent things that might have been catastrophic if she hadn't intervened. As he tugged his communicator out to send an encrypted message to a server that the BSAA would pick up as intel, he wondered what prompted her to tell him the things she did.

It was likely manipulative, it was definitely in her own best interest, but did that really matter when it was for the good of everyone?

Did her motives matter if she was saving lives?

He wasn't sure.

It was a gray area.  _Ada_ was a gray area. She wasn't a good guy, but honestly...was anyone? He was willing to sacrifice pieces of himself for the greater good...but what was that? What was the greater good here? Protecting people from bioterror?

Was there really a way to do that when the bad guys were so willing to break the rules to get there? Did it make Ada bad that she was willing to do the same? Did it mean he was too? Was he a bad guy doing things for the good of the people?

Or a good guy doing bad things for the right reasons?

Hell, he didn't even know anymore. It was too much deep thinking on too little sleep. His hands scrubbed at his face as he let his eyes close. He wasn't even aware the he'd been drifting into sleep when her voice whispered softly, "...I always knew you couldn't kill me...but I can't figure out why the hell you just won't let me die."

His hand snapped to the pouch on his vest to check for the mutagen, but it was still there. She hadn't robbed him. It was a flicker of something curious to know it.

She was lying beside him on the mattress on her back. They were both in the semi darkness with just the computer to offer flickering shadows over her profile. When he said nothing, Ada added, "...what do you see in me that seems worth saving?"

After a long moment, Leon confessed, "...good. You're not a saint, Ada, but I can't say I am either...I think...maybe we're both just doing the best we can to fight the same fight our own ways...sometimes? Maybe that means we have to cross the wrong lines to do it."

She turned her face toward him. His eyes looked silver in the light from her computer. She shook her head a little and answered, "...what if I asked you to join my side for a little while?"

His mouth twitched as Leon responded, "...like taunting me to be yours?"

She denied that, "...I thought-I thought that's what you wanted. I thought you wanted the game of it. Your face..." Ada trailed off and sighed, "Your face always said you did...which sounds like a rapist but there it is."

Leon inhaled and blew out a hard breath, "...if I didn't...I wouldn't have played."

They both smiled a little sadly. Into the comfortable quiet, Ada finally asked, "...you sure you want to stop?"

His chuckle was gentle somehow, "No. I'm not sure of anything when you're around me, maybe that's part of the reason I seem to crave it like I do."

Surprised at the honesty, she dragged her gaze around that perfect face of his, "...maybe there's a part of me that would miss you if you were gone."

If she'd hugged him, he wouldn't have been more surprised. They both felt the arrow of that confession like she'd written him a note after gym class. Into the now tense moment, pregnant with truth, he confessed, "...maybe that's why I can't let you die...maybe there's a part of me that would miss you too."

Damn.

She'd lost some level of control here. She'd stepped into a murky quagmire of feelings. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Feelings allowed her another playground of control that attraction kept limited, but there was something sticky inside of her own for him.

It wasn't the same as what was written on his face, but it was something. She liked him. He was impossible  _not_ to like - a perpetual boy scout with a heart of gold and willingness to sacrifice himself for the good of others. He was charming and quirky and cocky and cute. He'd risked himself, more than once, to save her.

She didn't mind liking him, that was harmless, but she didn't want the idea of it being more than that. She didn't want to start depending on him, or expecting anything from him but what she needed. She didn't want to care about him.

And yet?

The idea of another woman in his bed didn't sit well. It was jealousy in her chest at the promise of it. She didn't like that either, but she accepted it the same as the liking. She needed him focused on her to keep the ball rolling toward her end game here.

She didn't need to be bound up in feelings for him, but she liked him. She did. She liked his desperate want of her. She liked his willingness to deal with her and tease her and the moment he'd grabbed her to smear their juices together and he'd told her he'd claimed her.

She'd liked that. She enjoyed a good filthy fuck when it was all about control. She liked the feeling of knowing she had a man by the balls.

She wasn't sure how she felt about knowing she had a man by the feelings.

Surprising her, Leon finally said, "...maybe I can't let go of the idea that you might be a good guy after all."

Ada felt her brows arch, "...do you really believe that?"

He laughed softly and shrugged, "Maybe there's no good or bad. Maybe there's just people making choices...but I think that's how I make peace with it. I have to believe that what you're doing...it's not trying to tear down the world I'm trying to save."

After a heavy silence descended, Ada admonished, "...you are such a boy scout. You should have killed me on that bridge."

His self deprecating chuckle made her smile as he mused, "...probably...but you could have killed me, Ada...right there...and you didn't either."

Without a moments hesitation, Ada confessed, "I know...it was the first time I let my guard down enough to fail a mission. The first and only time...because you were too much of a fucking boy scout for me to finish off...damn you."

He laughed, turning his head toward on the mattress, "...and now?"

"...and now you're too much of an asset. Now I owe you my life. Now? Now I find myself questioning what the hell I'm doing here with you...when I should take the sample and leave you sleeping. I woke you up...because some goddamn part of me wants to see the way you look at me."

They couldn't stop staring until Leon invited, "...so I guess the question is what do  _you_ want here, Ada? What do you want?"

There weren't enough hours in the day to tell him all the things she wanted. So, she said, "...too much...and I wish it was really that simple."

She gripped a hand into his vest at the shoulder and tugged. He rolled atop him without hesitation. There was something smooth in the kisses and smoother still in the moment.

Feelings were dangerous things, but the risk was how to balance them and not get lost in her own game.

After a long moment of the shifting sounds of their mouths mating, her computer beeped.

The evacuation team was above ground and waiting.

The fingers gripped in his vest to hold him to her pushed him up a little so they could both breathe. The rapid thunder of his heart in his ears punctuated the raspy gasp of her intake of air. After a handful of moments, Ada whispered, "...it's time to go."

Their eyes opened on each other.

Softly, he told her, "...move your hand left six inches and take the mutagen."

Ada licked her lips. She tossed her eyes around his face. He was just waiting for her to help herself to it. Instead? She pushed him up and off her and rolled out from beneath him.

As she moved toward the stairs, she told him, "...there's lockers under the 12th street station in Whispering Pines. Leave the duplicate there and I'll drop the intel on Irving for your asset there as well...consider it a...drop point...locker 33B...it'll use biometrics to access it..see ya round, handsome."

He heard her head up the stairs and stayed on the bed until she'd gone.

His hand touched his vest to find the mutagen still there...but the watch on his wrist for the VR was gone. His mouth twitched. His laugh was amused and annoyed at the same time.

He had no doubt he'd find it, after she'd cloned it, waiting for him in the subway station locker they now shared like a secret between them.

His fingers traced his lips.

Whatever game they were playing - he had a sneaking suspicion somehow they'd both just raised the stakes. There was no getting around it either - before it was done- it was going to be winner take all. It was the first time since they'd started that he began to wonder if he just might be the last man standing.


End file.
